This is the second post in a week on Chicago’s epic financial train wreck. That’s a lot of attention and it probably won’t happen again, given the target-rich world we live in.
But jeeze, talk about not learning from past mistakes.
This latest chapter begins with the Chicago mayoral race and the two candidates’ stances on the Jussie Smollett controversy – one is on his side, the other on that of the Chicago PD.
That’s interesting but otherwise irrelevant.
The race is between two African American women, one gay and the other presumably not, one from deep in the local political machine, the other from outside it. So far so good. The tent is getting bigger, more categories of people can aspire to high office, go Chicago.
But this is also apparently irrelevant, because when it comes to saving the city from pension-driven financial collapse, well, here’s a snippet from today’s Wall Street Journal:
There’s little daylight between the two Democrats on policy. Both support higher taxes to pay for pensions, though they differ on which levies to increase. Ms. Lightfoot this week endorsed a value-added tax on legal and accounting services. She’s also proposed an increase in the city hotel tax—already among the highest in the nation—and a real-estate transfer tax. Ms. Preckwinkle is supporting Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposal for a graduated state income tax. Both oppose modifying worker pensions and want to impose a moratorium on charter schools.
Trailing in the polls, Ms. Preckwinkle and her supporters have resorted to weaponizing identity politics. Last weekend U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush smeared Ms. Lightfoot at a Preckwinkle rally as a killer of black people and champion of police because she has served on the Chicago Police Board and Police Accountability Task Force. “Everyone who votes for Lori, the blood of the next young black man or black woman who is killed by the police is on your hands,” Mr. Rush declared.
Ms. Preckwinkle declined to denounce the comment. She may believe fomenting racial discord will help her turn out the vote in the city’s heavily black South and West sides, where she performed well during the primary. Thus, Ms. Preckwinkle may not want to be seen supporting the police investigation of Mr. Smollett, who claims to be innocent and a victim of racial discrimination.
The Journal reporter concludes:
“Neither candidate appears likely to arrest the city’s spiral into insolvency. But stopping its descent into cynicism and racial grievance may be an equal imperative.”
Wrong, WSJ. The financial spiral is everything. Chicago is experiencing an already catastrophic rate of out-migration, as people who can afford to (a.k.a. the tax base) move to less rapacious places. And the two mayoral candidates both oppose scaling back union benefits while proposing much higher taxes and more stringent regulations, which will turbo-charge the descent into financial chaos.
And this, recall from the post that appeared here a few days ago, comes as both Chicago and its host state Illinois begin massive and sustained borrowing campaigns to cover existing shortfalls.
The conclusion? They can only behave this way in a financial market that assumes no matter how badly they mess up, national taxpayers will be coerced into saving them and their investors. Look up “moral hazard” in the dictionary and you might find a picture of the Illinois state seal.
22 thoughts on "If You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse For Chicago …"
Disgusting city and state. I avoid it at all costs. Will travel out of my way to avoid it.
When stepping off a 200-foot high cliff, it really doesn’t matter whether you tip-toe off slowly or take a flying leap head-first.
The one thing the rest of us should *not* do is, attempt to rescue these people from the disaster THEY created.
Given the chance, they will pull you over the cliff, as well.
Eliminate Democrats and you eliminate the problem!
What a wasted article. Chicago will elect ANOTHER Democrat who will keep POUNDING the city into the ground. The anti-white, anti-police sentiment, political corruption and STAGGERING CRIME RATES will continue to flourish…and eventually there will be riots.
The Left NEVER EVER learn.
This is the end result of that legalized crime syndicate called a ‘union’, where workers get paid for more than they’re worth. It’s the ‘chitcago way’ – always a crime boss in charge of city hall collecting insurance fees… for store windows that do not get broken, fires that do not happen and five weeks of paid vacations.
Not just the Chicago way…the Democrat way.
It may be concluded, after the FBI allegedly investigates the mentality of State Attorney General Kim Foxx (another affirmative action hire, or am I just racist?) will conclude that confiscating Jussie Smollet’s $10,000 bond and dismissing all 16 felony charges was a good call, costing the City only $120,000 in overtime pay instead of the full $130,000 plus whatever legal costs – and damages due to riots – of trying him, in what would be a circus.
The mistake was in setting such a low bond. It should have been at least a million, based on the fact that he could easily afford it but still not want to lose it. Ten thousand was a joke.
Personally, I hope to see all of these liberal bastion cities cannibalize themselves, but everything takes soooooooo long.
Actually, she wasn’t a hire, it’s worse than that, the idiots elected her.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7a0ab86b049957e4dee13a854edfc230d6638359215882cefb11bc974899f98.jpg Nonsense, if it occurred with swiftest possible dispatch, they STILL wouldn’t learn.
Emotion, sympathies, and resulting stupidity, drive the moral and fiscal decline. It happens in every female driven culture
Chicago is on its way to become, very very soon, another fiscal Detroit or Baltimore if not far worse, as entitlement and public contractual payments far beyond the means to pay coupled with increasing taxes upon those with the ability to pay the most that as a result drives them out of the Chicago taxable jurisdiction, will drive credit ratings lower, increasing % interest payments in order to float the debt paper to begin with, ending any ability to service debt, that in turn ends in a practical bankruptcy … though neither Chicago nor Illinois can legally declare bankruptcy. With such a definite predictive conclusion, only fiscal morons would purchase Chicago or Illinois debt paper.
It’s the endless politically driven Democrat loop of Chicago and Illinois monetary and fiscal non, mal, and misfeasance wherein the population’s exit door is to States with a combo of jobs and lower/no taxes. Hence, why Florida and Texas are prospering these many years. Historically, let’s add the Democrat Clinton led NAFTA and free trade agendas that had exported hundreds of thousands of living wage manufacturing jobs and professions ex-USA, e.g., today, only 5% of all apparel sold in the USA is manufactured in the USA.
But, But, Democrats are for Unions, and the workers. This cannot be right…. lolololol
They are for unions in other countries that are taking our jobs.
The problem is that they will bring their Chicago politics with them and vote in the same type of (insert expletive here) they did in Chicago. Look at what’s happened in Florida and is happening in Texas.
Yep, liberals of all types are parasites. Once they destroy a host, they move on to the next one….
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It’s already happening, they took over the once solidly GOP DuPage county.
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It would be so cool if most of those people were conservative? Maybe they stayed only because of work, and now they are coming home to bolster the strength of Red States. Sadly, it seems that the majority are still enthralled by the Socialist fantasy. I wish that crap worked and we could just all have fabulous lives – for free. Chicago isn’t the cause of their madness. It’s the symptom of it. Soon, Chicago will be Detroit. Heck, Most of the big cities are headed that way. Baltimore? I’ll remain in rural America. It’s really all we have left. It’s everything, but it ain’t much considering what we have lost. Are we at the point of no return?
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Scum rises to the top.
chicago is the congo with pretty buildings and a lake
That’s funny.