BIG PROBLEMS CREEP up on you in little ways. I felt the impact of the mayor's budget cuts Saturday, outside the locked door of a public pool in the Richmond district.

I'd promised my three-year-old son, Michael, that we were going swimming. He'd been excited all morning, walking around with his swim trunks and talking about being a fish. I couldn't remember if the toddler swim at Rossi Pool was at 10 a.m. or 10:30 a.m., so at 9:45 we rushed into the car and drove as fast as we could to get there on time.

We ran up the steps to the front door at about 10:05 – and found a big, hand-lettered sign telling us to go away.

"Pool closed," it said, "due to budget cuts."

Michael, of course, burst into tears. "Why the pool closed?" he asked.

I, as a good parent, provide him only with fair, unbiased, objective information. "It's because the mayor didn't give them enough money," I said.

"The mayor took all the money?" he asked.

"No," I said, "the mayor didn't have enough money."

"Why he not have enough money?"

"Because he won't tax the rich."

"Why he not tax the rich?"

That, Michael, is a very good question.

The San Francisco budget was short $90 million this year. It could have been a lot worse, and next year it may very well be. Willie Brown has spent money lavishly during the good times, hiring thousands of new city employees, putting money to good use (Muni is much better) and to bad use (all those special assistants and public relations people haven't done much for anyone's quality of life).

But now he's had tough decisions to make – and he's done what Willie Brown has done for much of his career: he's let the rich and powerful off the hook.

I know what the mayor and many of the supervisors are going to say when the Bay Guardian (once again) suggests that it might be better to preserve city services and make the extremely wealthy, who have only gotten richer over the past few years, pay a tiny fraction of their fair share. They'll say: But nobody wants to raise taxes these days. It's political poison.

But that's so incredibly short-sighted. The tax structure in this country is terribly regressive; this is a liberal city. Why can't we even talk about taxing the rich? And if we can't do it here, in San Francisco, aren't we doomed to live in a plutocracy, forever?