HOW HE SEES IT A financial lesson from San Francisco

By JULES LOBEL
KNIGHT RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Talk about political genius!
One of our nation's young up-and-coming politicians has come up with a novel method of boosting his city's finances at a time when most municipal treasuries are in the doldrums from a lackluster economy, low employment levels, the flight of businesses, lower tax revenues, and higher and higher burdens on city resources.
Yes, at the same time that he is attempting to blaze a legal trail that many hope will lead to the constitutional acceptance of same-sex marriages in the United States, the new mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, has invented a strategem that has thousands of same-sex couples from across the nation flocking to his fair metropolis to tie the knot at $100 a pop.
Tourist influx
So far, if one does the simple math, the city's coffers have grown by several hundred thousand dollars with no immediate end to the onslaught of cash in sight. And then there's the tourist industry influx of out-of-towners spending on lodging, food and who knows what else, as well as the added tax revenues on all that spending.
Despite the controversy nationwide, this has to be something that President Bush and his supporters admire on an unspoken gut level: Here's a politician who has devised a painless way to lower deficits using good old capitalist derring-do. Give the public what it wants, and it will turn out in droves, spending its money all the way.
Now that Newsom can point with pride to his role in promoting a nondiscriminatory America while creating this financial municipal windfall, it can't be long before some other enterprising mayors will take a hint -- we've already heard some rumblings from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Washington could certainly use an infusion of cash. Do you suppose?
X Jules Lobel is a professor in the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.