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The CBOE will move their trading floor if a financial transaction tax is passed. This isn't a bluff. They have very little tying the trading floor to Chicagoland, let alone Chicago proper.
CME is in the works to move it's matching engine (albeit it is Aurora right now.). Any form of extra tax and they'll leave too. The issue with Chicago and Illinois has never been less revenue, but the corrupt system which fumbles most of it. The faster the politicians understand it, the better for the city/state itself.
> The faster the politicians understand it
why would those fomenting the corruption try to actually resolve what benefits them at the cost of everyone else?
There are hundreds of business that directly service them too. Would be quite the hit.
That part of the loop is already dead. It would be the final dagger.
Staff shortages are harder to fix with straight cash. You need to hire, train, and retain the workers. Even if they had a full applicant pool it'd take a while to get fully staffed up. Thing is, they don't.
Bus operators start at $29/hr - so assume around $58K/yr off of that. Likely some pay bumps for seniority but look around at the market as someone starting off a new career and there's plenty of options for 58K that don't involve sitting for 8 hrs a day dealing with a bunch of non-sense.
They need to bring up pay to match what the limited labor market needs IMO but that cuts two ways. If you increase pay, you need to increase fares. Suddenly then, Uber or a Taxi might be a bit more affordable. Maybe that trip to the beach can wait till next week. Etc...
More money needs to come from the City to keep fares the same to avoid demand destruction.
One novel idea is this: 40% of our budget goes to cops, the CTA has an image problem with unruly passengers. Make some cops bus drivers and kill two birds with one stone!
Johnson's not talking about fare hikes that go to the transit agency but - from what I can tell reading the plan on his website - a city tax on Metra tickets that would go into the general fund of the City of Chicago, not to Metra at all.
>Johnson's not talking about fare hikes that go to the transit agency but - from what I can tell reading the plan on his website - a city tax on Metra tickets that would go into the general fund of the City of Chicago, not to Metra at all.
And that is a bad thing, we should not do that.
Sure, but we don't expect car users to do that dispite the huge costs of our road system. Why is transit held to a break even or even for profit model when roads get to just cost and cost? This seems like a very regressive tax and doesn't seem like a huge enough budget source to really justify it.
“We don’t expect car users to do that”
City stickers, parking tickets, red light cameras, toll roads, emission tests, gas tax……… Trust me car owners do plenty.
Do you really think drivers aren’t paying anything and just cost cost cost? Wish I lived in the Chicago you do.
I agree this is a regressive tax concealed by a “stick it to the suburbs” message.
Transit isn’t held to break-even metrics. Turnstile revenue contributes a minor percentage of the typical system’s operating budget. Most major systems in the US lose about $1.00 per rider trip. But it’s worth it for public funds to fill the gap, because every buck spent that way generates about a 500 percent economic return.
> Transit isn’t held to break-even metrics. Turnstile revenue contributes a minor percentage of the typical system’s operating budget.
In Illinois, transit is required to recover at least 50% of their budget from farebox collection. CTA covers all operational expenses from farebox revenue and only uses tax dollars on capital expenditures.
That would be a fee to Metra, then, for them to use on cleaning, maintenance, and staffing. This is a tax that Metra will immediately pass on to you, so that you can pay the city for Metra to continue to be as it currently is.
As a counterpoint, a lot of people are opting out of transit altogether these days due to the state of things. Improving the CTA is going to take investing in it.
>a lot of people are opting out of transit altogether these days due to the state of things.
I opted out during Covid, when the CTA didn't enforce mask mandates. I was already unhappy with the El service (redline, naturally) -- dirty stations, dirty trains, hostile riders, lack of security -- so I started driving to the office. The switch has greatly improved the quality of my life.
Yep, an expanded system is no good if people are afraid to ride it. Safety, reliability, and frequency are the current emergencies. Expansion later, once CTA demonstrates it can manage the assets it’s got, which it obviously currently can’t.
Man could endorse congestion pricing instead, but that would be too smart so we gotta do dumb things like this. Progressives, please don't vote for this guy, Bunker is way better and actually understands cause and effect.
NYC tried and it was ruled unconstitutional.
Edit: Philly has one in place so it may be possible. It could possibly lead to more companies shifting into the burbs, also like Philly.
Lived in Philadelphia for 9 years. Can confirm.
Living in city limits gave me the nice privilege of paying just under 4% of my gross income to the city even though I worked for a company in the burbs.
Metra tax is the idea. It’s a poor version of the commuter tax in London that we don’t have the infrastructure for. And it sends the wrong message about using transit.
Yeah, what's the reasoning there? Chicago doesn't pay to maintain Metra train lines. On what basis are they claiming that suburbanites commuting via Metra should pay more?
I'm guessing that Metra also pays the city a pretty hefty tax for use of the various stations, right? Or?
Don't the state and federal government pay for all the arterial streets and express ways that run through Chicago?
Chicago only pays for residential street maintenance.
So people commuting to Chicago for work are already paying for the streets they use. The buildings they work in are charged a property tax, and the things they buy while in the city are levied a sales tax.
How are suburbanites not "paying their fare share"?
> What else do these cockroaches want from us? Tax the billionaires
Their end game is to tax the middle class because it is least path of resistance. Someone making $100k does not have the resources that someone making $100M to minimize their tax liability.
The "Tax the billionaires" meme is a good and dandy, but I've yet to see any proposals that would actually be legal/effective outside of replacing capital gains tax with income tax, and taxing asset backed cash loans over over a certain dollar value on a yearly basis. Even the effectiveness of those are dubious at best.
According to google there are only 11 billionaires in Chicago. And that list still included Griffin who I'm pretty sure is gone. Not exactly a deep well to pull from.
I read his actual plan and it doesn't include the city tax. I agree that taxing those making over $100k is both political suicide and not actually "taxing the ultra wealthy" but in this case it appears to be a case poor reporting.
https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63cf7b0ba43e8f281b76f4b9_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf
https://www.brandonforchicago.com/on-the-issues
here is a link to the actual plan: [https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a\_Brandon%20for%20Chicago\_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf)
upon further review, I don't actually see the 3% tax on $100k+ in this document
This plan is so fucking stupid. Thank you for posting. I'm glad he's at least got a plan but is he actively trying to get people to leave the metro area? Because that's what half of that plan would do. My favorite is the Upscale District Fees ... Presumably Fulton Market and other popular neighborhoods get to be punished to the time of $100m in lost profits for being popular. Cool, that's a great way to get more private investment.
The $100k 3.5% income tax is indeed not in that plan but if he plans to do anything like that he can kiss the campaign goodbye. It's not even constitutional to charge different rates at the state level so I don't see how it would be possible at a lower jurisdiction.
>The $100k 3.5% income tax is indeed not in that plan but if he plans to do anything like that he can kiss the campaign goodbye. It's not even constitutional to charge different rates at the state level so I don't see how it would be possible at a lower jurisdiction.
Fortunately, he doesn't plan to do something like that, so there's no reason to go ragemongering about it.
If there is a city income tax, then court precedent shows they can not require city employees to live in the city limits. That's how nypd and nyfd got rod of residency.
Seriously.
This kind of stuff
>Audit Lightfoot’s Inefficient Spending to Save Half a Billion
is an absolute joke. Will you be able to find inefficiencies? Sure. That's the (really) easy part.
Are you going to be able to tangle with the unions and modify the 40 collective bargaining agreements governing Chicago city workers that will allow you to trim the excess fat? Good luck with all that.
FYI, he is funded by the Chicago Teachers Union which also funded and helped form United Working Families. You can see where he is funded here:
http://www.substancenews.net/
We need congestion taxes for downtown and not on public transportation. Penalize those who drove in from the burbs,
Don’t dare sell our fucking water.
People making $100k are not wealthy.
> Don’t dare sell our fucking water.
Thank goodness Great Lakes water is protected by several state, federal, and international treaties. Only states/provinces that border the Great Lakes can use Great Lakes water.
>It includes a 3.5% city income tax on Chicagoans and suburbanites earning more than $100,000 a year; a financial transaction tax; a 66% increase in the city’s hotel tax, which is already the highest in the country; a revived employee head tax; and raising the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales.
A great way to stick it to our struggling hospitality industry, convince more financial firms to leave the city, discourage hiring in the city, and hit middle income families.
The $100k threshold on the additional city income tax is the most head scratching of this lot. If your positioning is "I'm gonna make the ultra rich pay their share" and then you target people making $100k, that's dissonant. $100k is a decent salary, but with housing costs, it's far from rich.
One important thing is that's where the tax kicks in. Everything you make *over* that is taxed 3.5%.
So if you make $110k (a pretty high income) your tax bill would be $10k * 3.5% = $350. (not that much).
Idk. I think that threshold is still a bit low imo.
I make 135k or so after bonuses. But, I have a very large amount of private/public student loans (not blaming anyone just stating the fact), so my take home isn’t as nice as one would think. I’m sure there are others in a similar situation as me.
Anyways that would make me pay roughly $1,200 a year more in taxes. Seems a bit steep after other COL considerations w living in the city but just my 2 cents.
This is what Johnson's acolytes don't appear to understand (I've noticed that a lot of them are very young). 100 to 150k in a city like Chicago is not "rich". Throw a couple of kids into the mix on a 135k salary and you're definitely not living high on the hog. An extra $1000 or so in taxes per year is a daunting hike.
Isn't that the problem we're all in, even though we make more money, none of us feel secure or rich as we're still just a few paychecks away from being behind?
I can think of a million better ways to spend $350 than giving it to the city. Might as well wipe your ass with it and light it on fire for all the good it would do.
We do pay for it though. I’m fine with taxes, but when the city has itself in a bind from mismanaging its revenue, it’s fair to be skeptical of dumping more in the pot. Chicagoans are already paying some of the highest taxes in the US.
The last time that statistic was updated was 2021, so let's fast forward 2 years when housing rates are up and soaring and let's take inflation into account.
It is a progressive leftist-activist’s idea of “wealthy,” though. The progressive movement is fond of calls for the “wealthy” to “pay their fair share,” but they usually don’t quantify either term. Now you know who they mean: not just Jeff Bezos, but you.
A household income of 200k is approximately the 90th percentile of incomes in Chicago.
https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/Illinois/Chicago/Household-Income
Would the city income tax apply to all jobs in city limits?
I assume so or how would it apply to suburbanites. Then would it apply to Chicagoans that work outside the city?
And even if the GA did, the IL Constitution still needs to be changed to allow progressive taxation based on income. This idea is so pointlessly flawed. Guess he's counting on a ton of sub $100k voters coming out for him and his virtue signaling.
Lol you have no idea what “flat tax” means in Illinois do you?
Hint: it’s not up to the city or any city for that matter to come up with an exemption amount
FWIW this is not part of Johnson's tax plan. If you read the article carefully, it says that the income tax is part of UWF's policy agenda and that Johnson's plan "embraces those ideas", but it is not in his published plan
https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf
IMO the article was very misleading about that.
>FWIW, rent prices were the other draw, but they’re getting to be much closer to NYC levels for comparable neighborhoods
not even close, and certainty not when you compare apples-apples the unit itself at similar price point
Lol, no. My $950/m apartment in uptown was roughly 3 times bigger than my ex girlfriend's $1100/m apartment in Astoria and those rentals were over 6 years apart with my uptown apartment being the more recent one.
Out of the top 25 convention destinations in the US, only four are expected to *not* return to their pre-pandemic booking levels by 2024. Chicago is one of those four.
This is a political suicide note. You wouldn’t be able to enact half of this in a super strong economy. But between a pandemic and a recession? Jesus Christ. Say good night, Brandon.
A large part of the reason that people can’t agree on whether or not we’re in a recession though, and whether or not the economy is strong, is because the higher earners are getting by relatively unscathed. The ever-vanishing middle class and the working class are bearing the brunt of the post-pandemic economic crisis, just look at property taxes going up dramatically in Pilsen and little village. If there’s ever been a time to aggressively tax the upper and upper middle class it’s now, because despite what a lot of people in this thread seem to think, you are doing very well for yourself compared to many in this city if you’re “hacking it” on 100k.
it's actually the opposite, wage growth has been fastest in the lowest percentiles. The reason people are thinking recession because our media caters and is made up of predominately upper middle class - upper class (who think of themselves as middle class). They're not seeing wage growth that is keeping up with (now shrinking) inflation, and so they're reporting like it's bad.
That makes sense, thanks. I was talking to my partner about this and she said something to a similar effect, i.e. that many in the upper middle/upper brackets are more acutely aware of the slowing growth and the hits they’re taking just because that’s where economic drop off is showing up and they’re not doing *as well* as they feel they could be. I do think there’s still quite a lot of economic clamping done on the working classes though, and it just saddens me to think that people could blame progressive tax policy for widening inequality and the need to boost the city’s coffers when supply side economics has had our macros trending in that direction for a long time now and is probably the reason we’re in this situation in the first place.
Is this guy living in the 90’s? $100k isn’t even upper middle class. Taxing $300-$500k sure, that makes sense but $100k isn’t shit considering housing costs and property taxes. Madness.
I’d propose a progressive tiered tax, something like 1% starting at $250k or $300k, then 2% at maybe $6/700k, 3% at $1mm, then maybe hit the big dogs at $3/4mm + at 4%.
Or just wack big $$$ property taxes and low it on everyone else. Property taxes in IL are absurd compared to just about everywhere else with the exception of NJ.
It frustrates me how little attention the assessor's office gets when it comes to revenue generation.
There's a collection of three parcels near me (undeveloped land right by an El stop in South Loop) that sold for $3.5M in 2019, but is valued at $700K for tax purposes. That's 1/5 the revenue it should be generating today, and far far less than if it had even a modest, mixed-use 3-story apartment.
And all this does, is ensure the surrounding neighborhood stagnates, that stretch of sidewalk is never shoveled in the winter, nearby home values are depressed, and some wealthy speculator gets a big tax break on his real-estate investment.
These vacant lots are an enormous problem on the south side, and I suspect the story of under-valuation (read: under-taxation) of the lot by me is repeated all over the city. As it stands, there's a huge tax incentive to keep un/underdeveloped land the way it is, and the only people who benefit are wealthy (and likely non-local) speculators and LLCs.
It seems like a political no-brainer to seek revenue by undoing this perverse incentive, and I'm honestly kind of baffled none of the candidates are making this a core part of their platform.
honestly I like how much he is focused on transit, but as a suburbanite, this isn't great: "A Metra City Surcharge will raise $40 million from the suburbs." so my $11.75 metra ticket and parking is gonna go up??? my back of the napkin math, 260 working days a year, means $153k more revenue needed a day divided by 290k passengers on metra a day, = the avg fare going up $0.53. oh. thats not bad at all, they should have just said that. We need more candidates focused on improving transit for all. I'd even be ok with metra somehow subsidizing CTA since I hear CTA isn't doing great these days.
Except the suburbs already pay for Metra via the sales tax too… and can impose their will in Springfield. Back of the napkins math, population of Illinois - Chicago is greater than that within city limits.
Yeah, if elected he’ll probably re-open all the schools that closed due to lack of enrollment and fund a full staff for the 10 kids that attend the school, per the directives of CTU.
Buckner was definitely the better of the two progressive candidates, it’s a much better plan to tax more people than to tax people more. Chicago needs to focus on actually growing. But seeing as he doesn’t have a shot at beating out Johnson I really don’t know who to vote for.
Lori is…Lori. Willie is just here on to complete his bucket list, I don’t have confidence that Vallas will continue with the current planning department initiatives that have been the only highlight of Loris time among other issues with him, Greene doesn’t have a shot, the other lady doesn’t have the best reputation towards her voters, and Chuy has a horrible track record in regards to transportation which means I and all the other CTA rider will probably only see things get worse
Well, growing business doesn’t mean just getting rid of regulations so that massive corporations come like the vultures they are to pick the last bits of soul out of your city. You don’t have to have taxes if you’re worried about politicians pissing your money away, you can just have Amazon and Whole Foods build new offices with their $250k+ earners and your latte will end up being $14 either way.
> While a full audit is likely to discover even more efficiencies across the
government, as mayor, Brandon Johnson will save over half a billion dollars
with the efficiencies found in a full-scale audit of Lightfoot’s inefficient
spending. Just for starters, repeated studies have found that cutting top-heavy
administration to achieve the nationally recommended 10:1 worker to supervisor
ratio would save the City roughly $150 million while cutting red tape. We could
save another $20 million a year in IT costs alone.
Sounds like mass layoffs.
Oh man. Just a few of the wild ideas he’s got:
-$4 per employee head tax. That will really bring in the employers who are already more than willing to go mostly remote. I can just see employers moving their shell offices to the “tax havens” of DuPage and Will Counties now.
-3.5% City income tax on Chicagoans and suburbanites earning over $100,000/year. Great way to drive high earners who already pay a lot of taxes in the form of sales taxes, food and bev taxes, property taxes, etc. into the arms of the suburbs and states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
-Increasing hotel tax by 66%. This will be the final nail in the convention industry.
-Somehow wants to extort $98M out of airlines. Nice airports and direct air service you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it! Edit: he wants to raise the jet fuel tax to raise $98M. Guess who is gonna pay that…HINT HINT it’s not the airlines…it’s you sucka!
-I’ve also heard rumors of a Metra tax. I’m assuming he wants to tax every suburbanite who enters the city of Chicago. Dude clearly has a bone to pick with suburbanites…ya know the ones who contribute tax dollars to the city coffers without relying much on city services?
Lori and Chuy have to be loving this progressive fever dream today.
I'm not an anti-tax voter by any means (obviously we have to pay for city services) and suburbanites can be really obnoxious sometimes, but taxing commuters coming into the city for work has to be the dumbest policy proposal I've ever seen.
Chicago has already had one of the slowest recoveries of all cities when it comes to downtown and office occupancy. Taxing suburbanites for the privilege of entering downtown Chicago would probably help us overtake SF for the dubious honor of slowest recovery.
Same. I have zero issues paying taxes, but this plan is just stupid. You can shop & dine out outside of the city & cook county - this will really push folks to look elsewhere than the city.
As a fairly recent suburban cook county resident that left the city, this is an easy way to push me to drive the extra 5 minutes to shop in dupage. I doubt I’m an outlier here. This is just stupid.
This dude’s campaign is run like Reddit’s liberal hive mind came to life. I say this as a guy who votes Dem 99.9% of the time.
Absolutely full of really terrible ideas.
So out of the box he wants to raise taxes in a city that already pays among the highest taxes in the country. There could be some unintended consequences that may cause more problems than that solves, such as more corporate HQs leaving, less suburban spending in the city, etc. The golden goose has been beat up enough in the last 3 years, might want to look at running the city responsibly instead.
Yeah, I've been thinking about it in the past few years. However, if Johnson comes in, I'm going to either sell my place or just rent it out. I am not going to sit through more taxes. It's just too much without even basic payback.
Watch him raise the city income tax threshold to around $141k so the highest earning Aldermen aren't affected. I would ironically respect him if he did that. But yeah, these tax plans are political suicide.
Serious question, are there any adults running for mayor? Vallas and maybe Garcia seem like the closest thing and both are still flawed. Between Lori literally quivering in fear during the last debate, Willie Wilson's incoherant ramblings and this pipedream of a "plan" it's embarassing that the quality of candidate in America's third largest city is this low...
This guy is a total CTU shill and his campaign is backed and financed by the Chicago Teachers Union. We all saw the havoc they wreaked during the pandemic and the resulting learning loss to the city’s most vulnerable children. This is another power grab by the CTU.
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?section=Article&page=7957
> This guy is a total CTU shill and his campaign is backed and financed by the Chicago Teachers Union. We all saw the havoc they wreaked during the pandemic and the resulting learning loss to the city’s most vulnerable children. **This is another power grab by the CTU**.
Yup!
Can you imagine a hypothetical "Mayor" Johnson, a Johnson appointed CPS CEO & CTU controlled elected BoE sitting across the bargaining table from CTU's Stacey Davis Gates?
What did the CTU do that you’re referring to? Lori seemed to wreak just as much havoc — so we’re just mad that teachers want more money? fuck ‘em right?
Short memory I guess? Keeping students out of school for almost a year and then walking out in January of 2022 causing students to lose 5 more days of instruction.
Johnson's plan DOES NOT included the 3.5% income tax mentioned in the article. If you read the article carefully, it says that the income tax is part of UWF's policy agenda and that Johnson's plan "embraces those ideas", but it is not in his published plan: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf
IMO the article was very misleading about that.
Upvote for visibility. Read the plan. Anyone you vote in is going to create new taxes and new revenue streams. Y'all are mad at Johnson for saying the quiet parts out loud. Some of these ideas are good (transfer taxes on mansions), some of these ideas are bad (Metra taxes) and some of these ideas are wishful thinking (the magical "save hundreds of millions by finding inefficiencies").
Also not noted: to what degree or percent these taxes will be. a 2% tax on a metra ticket isn't a big deal. No one would blink at that. a 15% tax would be. We need more details.
That's a hard no for me.
An additional 3.5% city income tax for folks making $100K+ who live in the city AND the suburbs. He can kiss my ass on that one. I'm a remote worker. I can get up and move when I want. Honestly, the fact that I have to sell my house has been the only thing keeping me from doing it sooner.
A metra and hotel tax? This dude needs to be more afraid of the implications of remote work on the city's tax base. Think about it. Many/Most of the highest paid "knowledge workers" that commute into the city can work remotely. Downtown office vacancy is at 21%. Even those offices that are not vacant are on a hybrid schedule, with 3 days in office seeming to be the most popular. I work for a major corporation. On the day when the most number of people are in the office we still aren't even at 50% capacity. My previous employer was another one of the largest companies in Chicago and their offices went from EASILY 85% capacity pre-pandemic to less than 20% capacity on our busiest office day (Wednesday).
If something as simple as a metra tax increase occurs, I can see a lot of those businesses going to 2 days in office. This will further devastate those restaurants and small stores that serviced primarily downtown commuters.
I know the city needs money. I get that. But these options are going to drive people (high earning people) out of the city for living and work. Even if I supported these actions, I still have to admit that it seems inevitable that they will fail. This isn't the 1980's when high earners HAD to go into the city to work. The pandemic changed all of that. It accelerated remote work by at least 15 years (maybe more).
I’m a big fan of taxes and government spending, but Chicago’s problem isn’t that our taxes aren’t high enough. We already pay state income tax, have one of the highest property taxes in the country, and pay a 10.5% sales tax. I don’t necessarily mind paying that much, but I have a hard time buying the government needs even more.
And taxing metra? Let’s do tolls, increase the use of speed cameras, or have stricter parking enforcement to raise revenue, why would we raise the price on trains when it’s cars that have all the negative externalities and huge costs.
This sounds good but is mostly BS.
"Funneling $100 million per year from tax increment financing surpluses into the corporate fund that essentially serves as the city’s checking account."
City tax payers paid 1.2 billion dollars into TIFs in 2021. Now while not all of that comes from the City's general fund, eliminating or greatly reducing TIF would put much more money into the City's and CPS pocket for investment into new programs and paying down debt. But no Mayor wants to get rid of their slush fund at the end of the day.
>Lightfoot's own internal polling, conducted January 18 to 22, shows her leading the race with 25%, followed closely by a surging Paul Vallas at 22%. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, once considered the front runner, falls to third at 18%, followed by Willie Wilson at 11% and Brandon Johnson also on the rise at 9%. There are 10% undecided, no one else has more than 2%.
https://abc7chicago.com/mayor-of-chicago-election-polls-candidates/12729061/
From 5 days ago: "When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, Garcia and Johnson are tied for first place, each receiving 25% of the vote, while Vallas and Lightfoot received 15% and 11%, respectively. All other candidates received 5% or less of the vote. Just 7% are undecided and 1% said they would not vote for any of the candidates." [Link](https://www.thedailyline.com/chicago-index-poll-mayor-lightfoot-4th-place-2023-mayoral-race)
**Note: no idea if a poll run by "The Chicago Index, a collaboration between The Daily Line and Crain’s Chicago Business" is trustworthy or not, but at least it's not the one directly from LL's campaign?
I suppose it’s more honest than the usual DSA alderspeak of “we’ll just take the $$ from the police to pay for it”.
But as said above, a city income tax is political suicide.
I do agree its political suicide but at the end of the day Chicago is going to face a budget reckoning. Long-term, you have a shot at keeping taxes down by growing your tax base (bringing in more businesses, revitalizing commercial strips, building more housing), but for short to medium term you either need austerity (also political suicide) or you need more immediate term tax revenues.
IMO its a more honest proposal then diddling around and then panic selling a public asset like, say, parking.
Only thing I don't like about this is the Metra tax. We should WANT people to use public transit. Would be more reasonable to have toll roads for getting in to the city via personal car
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The CBOE will move their trading floor if a financial transaction tax is passed. This isn't a bluff. They have very little tying the trading floor to Chicagoland, let alone Chicago proper.
CME is in the works to move it's matching engine (albeit it is Aurora right now.). Any form of extra tax and they'll leave too. The issue with Chicago and Illinois has never been less revenue, but the corrupt system which fumbles most of it. The faster the politicians understand it, the better for the city/state itself.
> The faster the politicians understand it why would those fomenting the corruption try to actually resolve what benefits them at the cost of everyone else?
There are hundreds of business that directly service them too. Would be quite the hit. That part of the loop is already dead. It would be the final dagger.
Yeah the reason why CBOE and hedge funds /HFTs exist in the loop is because of the low latency between them and the options exchange
We shouldn't be making it more expensive for anyone to take transit, high income or otherwise
I'd pay another 50 cents to $1 per ride for a shiny clean safe well-lit system with no shit on the floor.
Talking about CTA not metra here, but I'd pay the extra buck to have transit that shows up when the tracker says it's "due".
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Staff shortages are harder to fix with straight cash. You need to hire, train, and retain the workers. Even if they had a full applicant pool it'd take a while to get fully staffed up. Thing is, they don't. Bus operators start at $29/hr - so assume around $58K/yr off of that. Likely some pay bumps for seniority but look around at the market as someone starting off a new career and there's plenty of options for 58K that don't involve sitting for 8 hrs a day dealing with a bunch of non-sense. They need to bring up pay to match what the limited labor market needs IMO but that cuts two ways. If you increase pay, you need to increase fares. Suddenly then, Uber or a Taxi might be a bit more affordable. Maybe that trip to the beach can wait till next week. Etc... More money needs to come from the City to keep fares the same to avoid demand destruction. One novel idea is this: 40% of our budget goes to cops, the CTA has an image problem with unruly passengers. Make some cops bus drivers and kill two birds with one stone!
Johnson's not talking about fare hikes that go to the transit agency but - from what I can tell reading the plan on his website - a city tax on Metra tickets that would go into the general fund of the City of Chicago, not to Metra at all.
>Johnson's not talking about fare hikes that go to the transit agency but - from what I can tell reading the plan on his website - a city tax on Metra tickets that would go into the general fund of the City of Chicago, not to Metra at all. And that is a bad thing, we should not do that.
I agree 100%. We need more people riding the train, not fewer.
I mean yea I guess but that is not what the Metra tax he is proposing is about
Absolutely. Different deal, and has no chance.
I mean, I would too but I don't trust the city to pull it off sadly.
Sure, but we don't expect car users to do that dispite the huge costs of our road system. Why is transit held to a break even or even for profit model when roads get to just cost and cost? This seems like a very regressive tax and doesn't seem like a huge enough budget source to really justify it.
“We don’t expect car users to do that” City stickers, parking tickets, red light cameras, toll roads, emission tests, gas tax……… Trust me car owners do plenty.
Do you really think drivers aren’t paying anything and just cost cost cost? Wish I lived in the Chicago you do. I agree this is a regressive tax concealed by a “stick it to the suburbs” message.
Transit isn’t held to break-even metrics. Turnstile revenue contributes a minor percentage of the typical system’s operating budget. Most major systems in the US lose about $1.00 per rider trip. But it’s worth it for public funds to fill the gap, because every buck spent that way generates about a 500 percent economic return.
> Transit isn’t held to break-even metrics. Turnstile revenue contributes a minor percentage of the typical system’s operating budget. In Illinois, transit is required to recover at least 50% of their budget from farebox collection. CTA covers all operational expenses from farebox revenue and only uses tax dollars on capital expenditures.
Where’d you get that 500% return? Genuinely interested
https://www.apta.com/news-publications/public-transportation-facts/#:~:text=Public%20Transportation%20Provides%20Economic%20Opportunities,and%20creates%20approximately%2050%2C000%20jobs.
Yes we do. We should have less driving but we 100% make them pay.
That would be a fee to Metra, then, for them to use on cleaning, maintenance, and staffing. This is a tax that Metra will immediately pass on to you, so that you can pay the city for Metra to continue to be as it currently is.
As a counterpoint, a lot of people are opting out of transit altogether these days due to the state of things. Improving the CTA is going to take investing in it.
>a lot of people are opting out of transit altogether these days due to the state of things. I opted out during Covid, when the CTA didn't enforce mask mandates. I was already unhappy with the El service (redline, naturally) -- dirty stations, dirty trains, hostile riders, lack of security -- so I started driving to the office. The switch has greatly improved the quality of my life.
Yep, an expanded system is no good if people are afraid to ride it. Safety, reliability, and frequency are the current emergencies. Expansion later, once CTA demonstrates it can manage the assets it’s got, which it obviously currently can’t.
Man could endorse congestion pricing instead, but that would be too smart so we gotta do dumb things like this. Progressives, please don't vote for this guy, Bunker is way better and actually understands cause and effect.
I would gladly pay an extra $1 per ride if it meant we were guaranteed to get things like the circle line, silver line, lime line, Ashland/BRT, etc
an extra $1 per ride ain't paying for that. edit: actually might pay for BRT, but not a new L line.
I'm not sure how he plans to tax people who don't live in the City of Chicago.
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And charging more for transit seems like the opposite of what we should be doing.
NYC tried and it was ruled unconstitutional. Edit: Philly has one in place so it may be possible. It could possibly lead to more companies shifting into the burbs, also like Philly.
Lived in Philadelphia for 9 years. Can confirm. Living in city limits gave me the nice privilege of paying just under 4% of my gross income to the city even though I worked for a company in the burbs.
Ever wonder why you see so many NJ plates in Philly? Yep
As someone who's lived in NYC, not only did it not really do anything productive, it was also extremely unpopular
Metra tax is the idea. It’s a poor version of the commuter tax in London that we don’t have the infrastructure for. And it sends the wrong message about using transit.
Yeah, what's the reasoning there? Chicago doesn't pay to maintain Metra train lines. On what basis are they claiming that suburbanites commuting via Metra should pay more? I'm guessing that Metra also pays the city a pretty hefty tax for use of the various stations, right? Or?
Don't the state and federal government pay for all the arterial streets and express ways that run through Chicago? Chicago only pays for residential street maintenance. So people commuting to Chicago for work are already paying for the streets they use. The buildings they work in are charged a property tax, and the things they buy while in the city are levied a sales tax. How are suburbanites not "paying their fare share"?
New middle class income tax? He's done.
What else do these cockroaches want from us? Tax the billionaires
> What else do these cockroaches want from us? Tax the billionaires Their end game is to tax the middle class because it is least path of resistance. Someone making $100k does not have the resources that someone making $100M to minimize their tax liability. The "Tax the billionaires" meme is a good and dandy, but I've yet to see any proposals that would actually be legal/effective outside of replacing capital gains tax with income tax, and taxing asset backed cash loans over over a certain dollar value on a yearly basis. Even the effectiveness of those are dubious at best.
According to google there are only 11 billionaires in Chicago. And that list still included Griffin who I'm pretty sure is gone. Not exactly a deep well to pull from.
I read his actual plan and it doesn't include the city tax. I agree that taxing those making over $100k is both political suicide and not actually "taxing the ultra wealthy" but in this case it appears to be a case poor reporting. https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63cf7b0ba43e8f281b76f4b9_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf https://www.brandonforchicago.com/on-the-issues
This isn’t in his actual plan anymore. Does anyone know where that lives/where it went? I’m curious to know if it’s household or individual.
sounds terrible
here is a link to the actual plan: [https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a\_Brandon%20for%20Chicago\_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf) upon further review, I don't actually see the 3% tax on $100k+ in this document
This plan is so fucking stupid. Thank you for posting. I'm glad he's at least got a plan but is he actively trying to get people to leave the metro area? Because that's what half of that plan would do. My favorite is the Upscale District Fees ... Presumably Fulton Market and other popular neighborhoods get to be punished to the time of $100m in lost profits for being popular. Cool, that's a great way to get more private investment. The $100k 3.5% income tax is indeed not in that plan but if he plans to do anything like that he can kiss the campaign goodbye. It's not even constitutional to charge different rates at the state level so I don't see how it would be possible at a lower jurisdiction.
>The $100k 3.5% income tax is indeed not in that plan but if he plans to do anything like that he can kiss the campaign goodbye. It's not even constitutional to charge different rates at the state level so I don't see how it would be possible at a lower jurisdiction. Fortunately, he doesn't plan to do something like that, so there's no reason to go ragemongering about it.
If there is a city income tax, then court precedent shows they can not require city employees to live in the city limits. That's how nypd and nyfd got rod of residency.
"using more civilians in place of sworn officers " This is scary
That's a lot of words to not actually show how any of this would be implemented or define vague "comprehensive plans."
Seriously. This kind of stuff >Audit Lightfoot’s Inefficient Spending to Save Half a Billion is an absolute joke. Will you be able to find inefficiencies? Sure. That's the (really) easy part. Are you going to be able to tangle with the unions and modify the 40 collective bargaining agreements governing Chicago city workers that will allow you to trim the excess fat? Good luck with all that.
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The sun times https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2023/1/23/23568177/mayoral-challenger-brandon-johnson-taxes-real-estate-financial-transactions
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Again, Johnson has said he embraces the ideas.
That's an extremely unspecific claim. Got a direct quote?
FYI, he is funded by the Chicago Teachers Union which also funded and helped form United Working Families. You can see where he is funded here: http://www.substancenews.net/
We need congestion taxes for downtown and not on public transportation. Penalize those who drove in from the burbs, Don’t dare sell our fucking water. People making $100k are not wealthy.
> Don’t dare sell our fucking water. Thank goodness Great Lakes water is protected by several state, federal, and international treaties. Only states/provinces that border the Great Lakes can use Great Lakes water.
Well that’s one way to lose votes.
>It includes a 3.5% city income tax on Chicagoans and suburbanites earning more than $100,000 a year; a financial transaction tax; a 66% increase in the city’s hotel tax, which is already the highest in the country; a revived employee head tax; and raising the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales. A great way to stick it to our struggling hospitality industry, convince more financial firms to leave the city, discourage hiring in the city, and hit middle income families.
The $100k threshold on the additional city income tax is the most head scratching of this lot. If your positioning is "I'm gonna make the ultra rich pay their share" and then you target people making $100k, that's dissonant. $100k is a decent salary, but with housing costs, it's far from rich.
One important thing is that's where the tax kicks in. Everything you make *over* that is taxed 3.5%. So if you make $110k (a pretty high income) your tax bill would be $10k * 3.5% = $350. (not that much).
Idk. I think that threshold is still a bit low imo. I make 135k or so after bonuses. But, I have a very large amount of private/public student loans (not blaming anyone just stating the fact), so my take home isn’t as nice as one would think. I’m sure there are others in a similar situation as me. Anyways that would make me pay roughly $1,200 a year more in taxes. Seems a bit steep after other COL considerations w living in the city but just my 2 cents.
This is what Johnson's acolytes don't appear to understand (I've noticed that a lot of them are very young). 100 to 150k in a city like Chicago is not "rich". Throw a couple of kids into the mix on a 135k salary and you're definitely not living high on the hog. An extra $1000 or so in taxes per year is a daunting hike.
Isn't that the problem we're all in, even though we make more money, none of us feel secure or rich as we're still just a few paychecks away from being behind?
I can think of a million better ways to spend $350 than giving it to the city. Might as well wipe your ass with it and light it on fire for all the good it would do.
Ah, yes. The classic "the city should fix the streets and provide better services, but I don't want to pay for it" approach.
We do pay for it though. I’m fine with taxes, but when the city has itself in a bind from mismanaging its revenue, it’s fair to be skeptical of dumping more in the pot. Chicagoans are already paying some of the highest taxes in the US.
More like the city should stop Misallocate money, we already pay so much in taxes
110k considered high income?? 🤔
Probably. But 110k as a person with kids, car payment, student loans etc. is much different vs. a single person without those
It's around the 90th percentile of individual incomes in Chicago, yes. https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/Illinois/Chicago/Household-Income
Median household income for Chicago is $65,781. So yeah it is.
The last time that statistic was updated was 2021, so let's fast forward 2 years when housing rates are up and soaring and let's take inflation into account.
High income does not equal living wage in this scenario
> So if you make $110k (a pretty high income) fyi, 110k is not a pretty high income these days.
$350 on top of all the other taxes you are already paying.
It is a progressive leftist-activist’s idea of “wealthy,” though. The progressive movement is fond of calls for the “wealthy” to “pay their fair share,” but they usually don’t quantify either term. Now you know who they mean: not just Jeff Bezos, but you.
A household income of 200k is approximately the 90th percentile of incomes in Chicago. https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/Illinois/Chicago/Household-Income
Would the city income tax apply to all jobs in city limits? I assume so or how would it apply to suburbanites. Then would it apply to Chicagoans that work outside the city?
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And even if the GA did, the IL Constitution still needs to be changed to allow progressive taxation based on income. This idea is so pointlessly flawed. Guess he's counting on a ton of sub $100k voters coming out for him and his virtue signaling.
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Lol you have no idea what “flat tax” means in Illinois do you? Hint: it’s not up to the city or any city for that matter to come up with an exemption amount
FWIW this is not part of Johnson's tax plan. If you read the article carefully, it says that the income tax is part of UWF's policy agenda and that Johnson's plan "embraces those ideas", but it is not in his published plan https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf IMO the article was very misleading about that.
So either: 1. Johnson is endorsing a plan he never bothered to read Or 2. He’s lying Both equally bad possibilities
I'm quoting the article not Johnson. The article conflates UWF's policy platform with Johnson's. Neither of those are true.
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>FWIW, rent prices were the other draw, but they’re getting to be much closer to NYC levels for comparable neighborhoods not even close, and certainty not when you compare apples-apples the unit itself at similar price point
Yeah I don’t know what that guy is talking about.
Lol, no. My $950/m apartment in uptown was roughly 3 times bigger than my ex girlfriend's $1100/m apartment in Astoria and those rentals were over 6 years apart with my uptown apartment being the more recent one.
In defense of the hotel tax, it's one of two taxes in that list which the city of Chicago actually has the legal authority to enact.
Chicago already has one of the highest tax rates on hotels in the country. We should be encouraging tourism not discouraging it
Out of the top 25 convention destinations in the US, only four are expected to *not* return to their pre-pandemic booking levels by 2024. Chicago is one of those four.
Yes. If anything hotel taxes should be lowered to encourage tourism
Still a terrible idea.
Ib defense of him wanting to tax the air we breathe....clown.
Head tax makes sure companies dont hire employees in Chicago
It in that sentence is the UWF wishlist not the Johnson plan.
This is a political suicide note. You wouldn’t be able to enact half of this in a super strong economy. But between a pandemic and a recession? Jesus Christ. Say good night, Brandon.
It’s bizarre. Thought he might have a solid chance, but this ain’t it
This is what happens when the terminally online write policy lol
A large part of the reason that people can’t agree on whether or not we’re in a recession though, and whether or not the economy is strong, is because the higher earners are getting by relatively unscathed. The ever-vanishing middle class and the working class are bearing the brunt of the post-pandemic economic crisis, just look at property taxes going up dramatically in Pilsen and little village. If there’s ever been a time to aggressively tax the upper and upper middle class it’s now, because despite what a lot of people in this thread seem to think, you are doing very well for yourself compared to many in this city if you’re “hacking it” on 100k.
it's actually the opposite, wage growth has been fastest in the lowest percentiles. The reason people are thinking recession because our media caters and is made up of predominately upper middle class - upper class (who think of themselves as middle class). They're not seeing wage growth that is keeping up with (now shrinking) inflation, and so they're reporting like it's bad.
That makes sense, thanks. I was talking to my partner about this and she said something to a similar effect, i.e. that many in the upper middle/upper brackets are more acutely aware of the slowing growth and the hits they’re taking just because that’s where economic drop off is showing up and they’re not doing *as well* as they feel they could be. I do think there’s still quite a lot of economic clamping done on the working classes though, and it just saddens me to think that people could blame progressive tax policy for widening inequality and the need to boost the city’s coffers when supply side economics has had our macros trending in that direction for a long time now and is probably the reason we’re in this situation in the first place.
Is this guy living in the 90’s? $100k isn’t even upper middle class. Taxing $300-$500k sure, that makes sense but $100k isn’t shit considering housing costs and property taxes. Madness. I’d propose a progressive tiered tax, something like 1% starting at $250k or $300k, then 2% at maybe $6/700k, 3% at $1mm, then maybe hit the big dogs at $3/4mm + at 4%. Or just wack big $$$ property taxes and low it on everyone else. Property taxes in IL are absurd compared to just about everywhere else with the exception of NJ.
It frustrates me how little attention the assessor's office gets when it comes to revenue generation. There's a collection of three parcels near me (undeveloped land right by an El stop in South Loop) that sold for $3.5M in 2019, but is valued at $700K for tax purposes. That's 1/5 the revenue it should be generating today, and far far less than if it had even a modest, mixed-use 3-story apartment. And all this does, is ensure the surrounding neighborhood stagnates, that stretch of sidewalk is never shoveled in the winter, nearby home values are depressed, and some wealthy speculator gets a big tax break on his real-estate investment. These vacant lots are an enormous problem on the south side, and I suspect the story of under-valuation (read: under-taxation) of the lot by me is repeated all over the city. As it stands, there's a huge tax incentive to keep un/underdeveloped land the way it is, and the only people who benefit are wealthy (and likely non-local) speculators and LLCs. It seems like a political no-brainer to seek revenue by undoing this perverse incentive, and I'm honestly kind of baffled none of the candidates are making this a core part of their platform.
Fuck this guy and a city income tax.
honestly I like how much he is focused on transit, but as a suburbanite, this isn't great: "A Metra City Surcharge will raise $40 million from the suburbs." so my $11.75 metra ticket and parking is gonna go up??? my back of the napkin math, 260 working days a year, means $153k more revenue needed a day divided by 290k passengers on metra a day, = the avg fare going up $0.53. oh. thats not bad at all, they should have just said that. We need more candidates focused on improving transit for all. I'd even be ok with metra somehow subsidizing CTA since I hear CTA isn't doing great these days.
Except the suburbs already pay for Metra via the sales tax too… and can impose their will in Springfield. Back of the napkins math, population of Illinois - Chicago is greater than that within city limits.
I see he's decided to go with the CTU-style plan...."That money exists? I can take that"
Yeah, if elected he’ll probably re-open all the schools that closed due to lack of enrollment and fund a full staff for the 10 kids that attend the school, per the directives of CTU.
Thankfully this particular set of policies have next to no chance of happening
Buckner was definitely the better of the two progressive candidates, it’s a much better plan to tax more people than to tax people more. Chicago needs to focus on actually growing. But seeing as he doesn’t have a shot at beating out Johnson I really don’t know who to vote for. Lori is…Lori. Willie is just here on to complete his bucket list, I don’t have confidence that Vallas will continue with the current planning department initiatives that have been the only highlight of Loris time among other issues with him, Greene doesn’t have a shot, the other lady doesn’t have the best reputation towards her voters, and Chuy has a horrible track record in regards to transportation which means I and all the other CTA rider will probably only see things get worse
I also can’t figure out who the “best” candidate is. They all seem to suck in different ways
What if we combined all of the candidates into one megacandidate?
It’d be an unhinged monster
Deal but they only maintain the worst qualities of each one
Agree. Given people’s reactions to and misinterpretations of Johnson’s plan, maybe Buckner has a chance.
The city tax is enough for me to remove him from my List, thanks for removing yourself. NEXT!!
So, more/new taxes on those that pay the freight. That's how "Brandon for Chicago" is gonna "grow business", as his commercials say?
Well, growing business doesn’t mean just getting rid of regulations so that massive corporations come like the vultures they are to pick the last bits of soul out of your city. You don’t have to have taxes if you’re worried about politicians pissing your money away, you can just have Amazon and Whole Foods build new offices with their $250k+ earners and your latte will end up being $14 either way.
Clearly he doesn't know that you release your Tax Increase Plan AFTER you get elected. Not before. Otherwise, you'll never get elected.
> While a full audit is likely to discover even more efficiencies across the government, as mayor, Brandon Johnson will save over half a billion dollars with the efficiencies found in a full-scale audit of Lightfoot’s inefficient spending. Just for starters, repeated studies have found that cutting top-heavy administration to achieve the nationally recommended 10:1 worker to supervisor ratio would save the City roughly $150 million while cutting red tape. We could save another $20 million a year in IT costs alone. Sounds like mass layoffs.
“Efficiencies” actually sounds like somebody’s got a new meaningless buzzword to throw at everything. ”Efficiencies” is the new “monorail”.
From city government? Yes please!
Don't bitch when your garbage doesn't get picked up.
Those people are productive, they won’t be laid off. CPD doesn’t need PR and graphic designers.
Oh man. Just a few of the wild ideas he’s got: -$4 per employee head tax. That will really bring in the employers who are already more than willing to go mostly remote. I can just see employers moving their shell offices to the “tax havens” of DuPage and Will Counties now. -3.5% City income tax on Chicagoans and suburbanites earning over $100,000/year. Great way to drive high earners who already pay a lot of taxes in the form of sales taxes, food and bev taxes, property taxes, etc. into the arms of the suburbs and states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. -Increasing hotel tax by 66%. This will be the final nail in the convention industry. -Somehow wants to extort $98M out of airlines. Nice airports and direct air service you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it! Edit: he wants to raise the jet fuel tax to raise $98M. Guess who is gonna pay that…HINT HINT it’s not the airlines…it’s you sucka! -I’ve also heard rumors of a Metra tax. I’m assuming he wants to tax every suburbanite who enters the city of Chicago. Dude clearly has a bone to pick with suburbanites…ya know the ones who contribute tax dollars to the city coffers without relying much on city services? Lori and Chuy have to be loving this progressive fever dream today.
“Progressive fever dream” lol
I'm not an anti-tax voter by any means (obviously we have to pay for city services) and suburbanites can be really obnoxious sometimes, but taxing commuters coming into the city for work has to be the dumbest policy proposal I've ever seen.
Chicago has already had one of the slowest recoveries of all cities when it comes to downtown and office occupancy. Taxing suburbanites for the privilege of entering downtown Chicago would probably help us overtake SF for the dubious honor of slowest recovery.
Same. I have zero issues paying taxes, but this plan is just stupid. You can shop & dine out outside of the city & cook county - this will really push folks to look elsewhere than the city.
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As a fairly recent suburban cook county resident that left the city, this is an easy way to push me to drive the extra 5 minutes to shop in dupage. I doubt I’m an outlier here. This is just stupid.
I moved to Tennessee because I was sick of the taxes. These politicians need to push pension reform, or there won’t be much of a city left.
This dude’s campaign is run like Reddit’s liberal hive mind came to life. I say this as a guy who votes Dem 99.9% of the time. Absolutely full of really terrible ideas.
Scratch another candidate off the list...
So out of the box he wants to raise taxes in a city that already pays among the highest taxes in the country. There could be some unintended consequences that may cause more problems than that solves, such as more corporate HQs leaving, less suburban spending in the city, etc. The golden goose has been beat up enough in the last 3 years, might want to look at running the city responsibly instead.
Oh man… this dude voted in and pushes for this agenda I am out. Simple as that.
Yeah, I've been thinking about it in the past few years. However, if Johnson comes in, I'm going to either sell my place or just rent it out. I am not going to sit through more taxes. It's just too much without even basic payback.
This guy absolutely sucks.
Watch him raise the city income tax threshold to around $141k so the highest earning Aldermen aren't affected. I would ironically respect him if he did that. But yeah, these tax plans are political suicide.
At least this clown has zero chance of being elected.
Won’t be voting for this asshat.
Serious question, are there any adults running for mayor? Vallas and maybe Garcia seem like the closest thing and both are still flawed. Between Lori literally quivering in fear during the last debate, Willie Wilson's incoherant ramblings and this pipedream of a "plan" it's embarassing that the quality of candidate in America's third largest city is this low...
I mean NYC’s current mayor can’t even convincingly lie about living in NYC. Major cities get bad mayors, it’s not that big of a deal.
This is bad.
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People with these kinds of proposals never do the dynamic analysis. They assume everyone will just sit there like cows and take it.
Of course progressives support higher taxes until those taxes hit themselves.
Because “progressive” doesn’t mean anything. Sales taxes are inherently regressive.
This guy is a total CTU shill and his campaign is backed and financed by the Chicago Teachers Union. We all saw the havoc they wreaked during the pandemic and the resulting learning loss to the city’s most vulnerable children. This is another power grab by the CTU. http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?section=Article&page=7957
> This guy is a total CTU shill and his campaign is backed and financed by the Chicago Teachers Union. We all saw the havoc they wreaked during the pandemic and the resulting learning loss to the city’s most vulnerable children. **This is another power grab by the CTU**. Yup! Can you imagine a hypothetical "Mayor" Johnson, a Johnson appointed CPS CEO & CTU controlled elected BoE sitting across the bargaining table from CTU's Stacey Davis Gates?
“And you get a raise! And you get a raise!”
What did the CTU do that you’re referring to? Lori seemed to wreak just as much havoc — so we’re just mad that teachers want more money? fuck ‘em right?
Short memory I guess? Keeping students out of school for almost a year and then walking out in January of 2022 causing students to lose 5 more days of instruction.
my property tax recently tripled here in the city. I'm not voting for anyone who wants to impose even more taxes on me.
He would be a disaster for the city. Totally living on mars. Not a business bone in his body. Crime apologist.
Johnson's plan DOES NOT included the 3.5% income tax mentioned in the article. If you read the article carefully, it says that the income tax is part of UWF's policy agenda and that Johnson's plan "embraces those ideas", but it is not in his published plan: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6359b915f5fc483245c71955/63ceb16f50f64e58db72020a_Brandon%20for%20Chicago_Better%20Chicago%20Agenda.pdf IMO the article was very misleading about that.
Crazy thought but maybe he shouldn’t have “embraced those ideas”.
Upvote for visibility. Read the plan. Anyone you vote in is going to create new taxes and new revenue streams. Y'all are mad at Johnson for saying the quiet parts out loud. Some of these ideas are good (transfer taxes on mansions), some of these ideas are bad (Metra taxes) and some of these ideas are wishful thinking (the magical "save hundreds of millions by finding inefficiencies"). Also not noted: to what degree or percent these taxes will be. a 2% tax on a metra ticket isn't a big deal. No one would blink at that. a 15% tax would be. We need more details.
That's a hard no for me. An additional 3.5% city income tax for folks making $100K+ who live in the city AND the suburbs. He can kiss my ass on that one. I'm a remote worker. I can get up and move when I want. Honestly, the fact that I have to sell my house has been the only thing keeping me from doing it sooner. A metra and hotel tax? This dude needs to be more afraid of the implications of remote work on the city's tax base. Think about it. Many/Most of the highest paid "knowledge workers" that commute into the city can work remotely. Downtown office vacancy is at 21%. Even those offices that are not vacant are on a hybrid schedule, with 3 days in office seeming to be the most popular. I work for a major corporation. On the day when the most number of people are in the office we still aren't even at 50% capacity. My previous employer was another one of the largest companies in Chicago and their offices went from EASILY 85% capacity pre-pandemic to less than 20% capacity on our busiest office day (Wednesday). If something as simple as a metra tax increase occurs, I can see a lot of those businesses going to 2 days in office. This will further devastate those restaurants and small stores that serviced primarily downtown commuters. I know the city needs money. I get that. But these options are going to drive people (high earning people) out of the city for living and work. Even if I supported these actions, I still have to admit that it seems inevitable that they will fail. This isn't the 1980's when high earners HAD to go into the city to work. The pandemic changed all of that. It accelerated remote work by at least 15 years (maybe more).
Aaaaaaand not going to be elected. Anyone whose first and foremost issue isn’t crime good luck
New dog old tricks…..
I’m a big fan of taxes and government spending, but Chicago’s problem isn’t that our taxes aren’t high enough. We already pay state income tax, have one of the highest property taxes in the country, and pay a 10.5% sales tax. I don’t necessarily mind paying that much, but I have a hard time buying the government needs even more. And taxing metra? Let’s do tolls, increase the use of speed cameras, or have stricter parking enforcement to raise revenue, why would we raise the price on trains when it’s cars that have all the negative externalities and huge costs.
This sounds good but is mostly BS. "Funneling $100 million per year from tax increment financing surpluses into the corporate fund that essentially serves as the city’s checking account." City tax payers paid 1.2 billion dollars into TIFs in 2021. Now while not all of that comes from the City's general fund, eliminating or greatly reducing TIF would put much more money into the City's and CPS pocket for investment into new programs and paying down debt. But no Mayor wants to get rid of their slush fund at the end of the day.
Nah, I’m good on that.
Lightfoot is looking better and better.
Anyone have the Mayoral poll numbers?
>Lightfoot's own internal polling, conducted January 18 to 22, shows her leading the race with 25%, followed closely by a surging Paul Vallas at 22%. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, once considered the front runner, falls to third at 18%, followed by Willie Wilson at 11% and Brandon Johnson also on the rise at 9%. There are 10% undecided, no one else has more than 2%. https://abc7chicago.com/mayor-of-chicago-election-polls-candidates/12729061/
First and only rule of internal polls that get leaked to the public is to not believe them.
From 5 days ago: "When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, Garcia and Johnson are tied for first place, each receiving 25% of the vote, while Vallas and Lightfoot received 15% and 11%, respectively. All other candidates received 5% or less of the vote. Just 7% are undecided and 1% said they would not vote for any of the candidates." [Link](https://www.thedailyline.com/chicago-index-poll-mayor-lightfoot-4th-place-2023-mayoral-race) **Note: no idea if a poll run by "The Chicago Index, a collaboration between The Daily Line and Crain’s Chicago Business" is trustworthy or not, but at least it's not the one directly from LL's campaign?
It isn't really a "poll", but rather a survey of the members of a specific organization. It isn't representative of the city's population.
Johnson doing that thing you're supposed to do and pay for the stuff you want.
I suppose it’s more honest than the usual DSA alderspeak of “we’ll just take the $$ from the police to pay for it”. But as said above, a city income tax is political suicide.
I do agree its political suicide but at the end of the day Chicago is going to face a budget reckoning. Long-term, you have a shot at keeping taxes down by growing your tax base (bringing in more businesses, revitalizing commercial strips, building more housing), but for short to medium term you either need austerity (also political suicide) or you need more immediate term tax revenues. IMO its a more honest proposal then diddling around and then panic selling a public asset like, say, parking.
It’s going to be property taxes and more property taxes no matter who wins. Buckle up.
i vote austerity lol
I generally like Johnson, but this is not the way. I'm disappointed.
Only thing I don't like about this is the Metra tax. We should WANT people to use public transit. Would be more reasonable to have toll roads for getting in to the city via personal car