Taxpayers vs. Bureaucrats, Part XXX

It is probably safe to assume that government bureaucrats are overpaid in every city and state, but it won't come as a big surprise to learn that San Francisco is especially profligate. Here are some disturbing details compiled by Investor's Business Daily:

We have seen the future and it works — for certain people. Take San Francisco municipal workers. The San Francisco Chronicle recently detailed just how overpaid the city's employees are. Their average yearly salary is $93,000 before benefits. A third of them made more than $100,000 in 2009. A newly retired deputy police chief (not even the city's top cop) made $516,118. ...The city's unions, which are powerful even by California standards, have produced a public-workers' paradise financed by high taxes on tourists, businesses (San Francisco even has a 1.5% tax on payrolls) and regular folk who choose to live there or who haven't figured out a way to leave. The city has poor and homeless people just like any other. ...in 2009, 28 city employees made more than the mayor, Gavin Newsom, who pulled down a respectable $250,903. Firefighters in San Francisco have a base salary of $102,648, while even lowly payroll clerks start at $54,314.