The scoreboard is in, folks, and Democrat-run cities across America are hemorrhaging money like a frat kid with his dad’s credit card at a Vegas buffet. Budget shortfalls in the billions. Pension funds running on fumes. Residents fleeing for the suburbs like the building’s on fire — which, in some of these cities, it literally is.

But hey, at least they’ve got DEI officers and protected bike lanes. That should keep the lights on.

Let’s run the numbers, because they’re spectacular. Chicago is staring down a $1 billion budget gap. Portland can’t figure out why nobody wants to open a business in a city where you can shoplift up to $1,000 worth of merchandise as a hobby. San Francisco — once the crown jewel of the West Coast — now has more boarded-up storefronts than a ghost town in a Western movie. And don’t even get us started on Baltimore, where they’ve somehow managed to spend more per student than almost any city in America while producing test scores that would embarrass a third-world country.

One city? That’s a bad mayor. Two cities? That’s a coincidence. But when every single Democrat-run metropolis in America is circling the financial drain at the exact same time? That’s a pattern, friends. That’s a philosophy.

Here’s how the playbook works. Step one: promise “free” everything to everyone. Step two: hire an army of bureaucrats to administer all the “free” stuff. Step three: watch productive citizens pack U-Hauls and head for Texas and Florida. Step four: raise taxes on whoever’s left. Step five: wonder why there’s nobody left to tax.

(Rinse and repeat until bankruptcy. It’s like a recipe, except the only thing they’re cooking is disaster.)

The pension bomb alone should terrify every taxpayer in these cities. We’re talking about decades of promises made by politicians who knew they’d be long gone by the time the bill came due. City workers were promised retirement packages that would make a Fortune 500 CEO blush — and now the money isn’t there. Shocking. Who could have predicted that promising lavish pensions while simultaneously chasing away every business and high-earner in your zip code would end badly?

Oh, right. We predicted that. Repeatedly. For about forty years.

And where are all these fleeing residents going? Red states. Red cities. Places where the taxes are lower, the streets are clean, and you don’t have to step over a tent city to get your morning coffee. Texas gained more new residents than any other state last year. Florida’s right behind them. Tennessee, Idaho, South Carolina — all booming.

Funny how that works. People move to places where the government doesn’t treat their paycheck like a buffet.

Meanwhile, the mayors of these sinking blue cities aren’t exactly tightening their belts. Chicago’s Brandon Johnson tried to solve his budget crisis by — wait for it — proposing MORE taxes. Portland’s city council responded to their budget hole by debating whether to spend money on a new “equity framework.” San Francisco allocated funds for a committee to study why people are leaving San Francisco.

Pop quiz: if your city is broke and everyone’s moving out, is the correct response (A) cut spending and make the city livable again, or (B) form a committee to study the problem while raising taxes?

If you answered B, congratulations — you’re qualified to be a Democrat mayor.

The truly infuriating part is that these cities aren’t broke because they don’t have enough revenue. Most of them tax their residents at rates that would make a medieval lord say, “Whoa, that’s a bit much.” They’re broke because they spend money like there’s no tomorrow on programs that produce nothing. Homelessness programs that create more homeless. Transit systems that nobody rides. “Green energy” initiatives that cost a fortune and don’t keep the lights on.

Every single dollar comes from somebody’s paycheck. And the people writing those paychecks are voting with their feet.

So here’s where we stand: the biggest, most expensive experiment in progressive governance is collapsing in real time. Every city that went all-in on the leftist economic model — big government, high taxes, heavy regulation, woke priorities over basic services — is staring at a fiscal cliff. And every city that kept taxes low, focused on public safety, and didn’t chase away its tax base is thriving.

We don’t need a PhD in economics to figure this one out. We just need a map and a highlighter.