Endgame: Chicago

There's nothing hotter than a little blue-on-blue action, and things are getting steamy at Chicago's City Hall as Mayor Brandon Johnson and his allies go to war with other Democrats over the scraps of the Windy City's finances.

We're in the endgame now.

Jim Talamonti reported for Center Square on Tuesday that Johnson's allies "launched a seven-figure campaign" to support the mayor's budget because opponents argue that "the mayor’s tax plans will send the city into an economic death spiral and could bring about costly litigation."

As of today, Chicago's political position is probably best described as paralysis. 

The city council's finance commission rejected Johnson's tax package on Monday, leaving the council with no budget to vote on yesterday. But that's just the start.

While they have until Dec. 31 to approve a budget, the two sides — maybe best described as the Johnson Democrats and the Slightly Less Insane Democrats — are fighting over billions.

Chicago Board of Education member Norma Rios Sierra, a Johnson appointee, "threatened layoffs if aldermen did not approve Johnson’s plan to divert $1 billion in tax-increment financing funds to Chicago Public Schools."

The sticking point is Johnson's "head tax" on Chicago business, originally proposed as $21-per-month tax for every worker at a business with 100 or more employees. Under pressure, Johnson revised the head tax to firms with 200+ employees, but also offset revenue shortfalls by hiking the city's "cloud tax" on software/streaming services further (from 11% to 15%).

"Nice server farm you have there. Be a shame if something was to happen to it."

Here's the thing: Johnson's head tax isn't meant to provide property tax relief for families stuck with bigger bills — more on that in a moment — or pay for vital city services like police and fire. Instead, he hopes to raise $100 million for "violence prevention and mental health." In other words, a nine-figure slush fund for progressive nonprofits. 

More than half the city's aldermen (aka city council members) oppose the head tax. 3rd Ward's Pat Dowell — the Finance Committee chair and a Johnson appointee — declared his opposition to a head tax "at any level."

Good lord, even Gov. JB Pritzker thinks it's a bad idea.

Then there's Johnson's proposal to tax social media, which might not even be legal. YOLO, right?

And Another Thing: Commercial real estate reportedly lost $400 million in value since the previous assessment, putting a bigger property tax burden on homeowners. Johnson doesn't seem to have a plan for that, maybe because he never saw a tax he wanted to cut.

Meanwhile, the city's pension system is an underfunded wreck that taxes can't fix, because there won't be any sheep left to shear — er, people and businesses left to tax — if the city imposed taxes big enough. 

"What about the Republicans?" I can hear you ask. "Where are they in this fight?"

Let me crack the jokes, OK?

No Republican has been mayor or held city clerk, treasurer, or similar roles in decades. There isn't a single registered Republican on the city council. Everybody knows that Chicago is the most reliably Democratic big city in the country, with Republicans basically shut out of the municipal government for most of a century. Not even San Francisco can match that. 

So maybe the Republicans are hiding in their basements with their ammo, waiting for the worst to pass. Or maybe they're already in Florida, waiting for that property tax repeal to become law.

Is Chicago really in the endgame? It's impossible to know for sure, and to paraphrase Adam Smith, there's a lot of ruin in a big city. And you have to assume that, so long as there are sheep to be fleeced, competing Democrat factions will eventually set aside their differences long enough to wield the shears. 

I guess the real question then is how long there will be enough sheep.

Recommended: In Which We Applaud Fareed Zakaria for Belatedly Seeing the Blindingly Obvious

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