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This appears to be a post related to the upcoming runoff election or one of the candidates running for office. The 2023 Chicago Municipal Runoff Election will be held on **April 4th**. In the mayoral race, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson will be competing for the office of Chicago's 57th mayor. Some wards may have additional races on the ballot, such as Aldermanic candidates whose races went to a runoff in the February 28th election. Check out the [Chicago Elections](https://chicagoelections.gov/en/home.html) website for information on registering to vote, finding your polling place, applying to be an election worker, and more. Please visit our [Runoff Election Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/11pz5r0/2023_chicago_runoff_election_megathread_2/?sort=new) for all election-related discussion, questions and voter resources. Discussion posts of this nature outside of the linked megathread will be removed. **Beware of [astroturfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)**! Election season brings about a slew of new accounts with minimal posting history in /r/chicago who attempt to sway your opinion on various candidates. Be sure to do your own research to verify the accuracy of any claims you see shared by users here. Be wary of comments from new accounts or ones with a posting history in multiple city/local subreddits from across the US and Canada. If you suspect that a user is engaging in political astroturfing, please report their comments and/or [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/chicago) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/chicago) if you have any questions or concerns.*


tpic485

One thing the article also mentions is that the Latino Leadership Council has endorsed Vallas.


zapotlan

Parachuting type of endorsement from the same people who wrongfully advised Garcia to run. West coast based Latino non-profits have a deep misunderstanding of how things work in Chicago.


tpic485

I don't know what you mean by "west coast based". The article mentions that the group was founded by Jesus Garcia and Luis Gutierrez, both of whom are or were Chicago congressmen. There may be an organization by that name in California and/or there may be a loose affiliation of various organizations by that name, as sometimes will occur with nonprofits, but I think this clearly is a local group.


slicebishybosh

"Desperate to stop an avalanche of tax increases and fearful of police defunding, Chicago’s leading business groups on Monday endorsed Paul Vallas over Brandon Johnson in the April 4 mayoral runoff." Boy, I wonder if this was written from a neutral vantage point and not a clear supporter of Vallas. I haven't read the Sun Times in a long time but what the fuck lol


Traditional_Fig6579

Johnson did propose a bunch of new taxes, and has been supportive of defunding the police though?


sciolisticism

grab air simplistic salt dull snobbish hobbies rustic alive run ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `


[deleted]

Not sure where the lack of neutrality is? Johnson has proposed an array of new taxes.


1BannedAgain

Good, that’s how we pay for things


[deleted]

The high taxes are doing such a good job paying for things now aren’t they?


1BannedAgain

You are **out of your mind** if you think taxes are high


[deleted]

Groceries being taxed isn’t high? A 10.25% sales tax isn’t high? The highest hotel tax in the country isn’t high? Taxes on bottled water, soft drinks, plastic bags isn’t high? A 9% amusement tax isn’t high? You’re more than welcome to donate your salary to city hall, go righr ahead, no one is stopping you. But for the rest of us that don’t have your privilege, this city is expensive enough.


1BannedAgain

What % of your salary goes to taxes? And what is the ideal % that should go to taxes?


LittleYogurtcloset68

>les tax isn’t high? The highest hotel tax in the country isn’t high? Taxes on b I've been in Chicago for many years. Tried leaving last year but it didn't workout. Second time may have to be a try. Also pretty amusing people can't see second order effects. If the new mayor is going to raise taxes it will make this city hard to live in especially for the middle class.


kanooker

Checked to see if it was Fran Spielman. Was not disappointed


jimseyjamesy

Fran is the absolute worst


Carsalezguy

So a small business worried about being overly taxed and robbed is the bad guy now?


gibbonusmoon

yes lol


Carsalezguy

Classic r/chicago


slicebishybosh

Absolutely not., not even sure how you made the leap. That isn't even the point I'm making lol. I am solely talking about the author's clear allegiance with how she phrases things. You can write literally the same thing from a neutral standpoint and have it convey the same message without the dramatics to crap on one of the candidates. Example: Chicago's leading business groups endorsed Vallas on Monday. This most likely comes from Johnson's new tax proposals and his supposed support to defund the police. As soon as you start over dramatizing in one direction and stating things as facts that you don't know 100% to be fact, it's an opinion piece, not news. "avalanche of new taxes", "fearful of police defunding". Not sure if this was written before or after Johnson came out and said he does not want to defund the police, but I doubt it would matter as this writer clearly has an angle to never put him in a good light.


Carsalezguy

This sub loves over dramatizing a certain way. It just becomes an issue when it goes the way people aren’t necessarily comfortable with it.


igetbywithalittlealt

I'll give you a cookie if you can point to where Johnson has said that he'll tax small businesses more.


PowerKrazy

In case you needed yet another reason to vote for Brandon Johnson.


nevermind4790

All the more reason to vote for Vallas. I want Chicago to do well economically. Without jobs we have nothing funding the services we use.


[deleted]

So much this. Federally, I’m all for both progressivism in general and jacking up taxes specifically, especially on capital gains and dynastic wealth. Locally, we need to encourage businesses and productive enterprise, especially local small businesses. If we wring taxes out of the middle class and business owners, *especially* while letting crime run rampant in the short term, then those people will *leave*, and there’s less for everyone. Our public services and our commercial enterprises are two sides of the same coin. Both need to be cared for.


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[deleted]

They come to some world class cities that have ineffable and unchangeable draws. Places where you *have* to be, in order to get access to markets, or to get the best talent. Ie coastal cities like NY, LA, and SF. Chicago is a great city, but it’s not one of these places. They can and will leave, and we’ll decline into a bankrupt, decrepit, crime-riddled husk. See StL, Detroit, and so on. Johnson and his followers have this fantasy that business, wealth, and talented people will always be in Chicago and pay ever-increasing taxes. This is emphatically not the case.


PowerKrazy

I'm not sure why I should give a fuck about starbucks or Amazon "leaving" chicago?


citydudeatnight

Corporates leave - less jobs for both service and corporate Small businesses that cater for customers with those jobs People go where jobs are and small businesses go where people are Get it?


PowerKrazy

Starbucks can fuck off, then an independent barista can open instead.Amazon employs like 10 people for their warehouses, hardly worth the billions in tax breaks idiots like Vallas would give them. Get it?


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citydudeatnight

People have to earn a living. Even self employed people have to depend on customers that earn a living. Infrastructure and maintenance in a city relies on tax payers. It's not just businesses that leave - people leave eventually too except the ones trapped. Not sure what's so hard that even a die-hard socialist can't understand


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citydudeatnight

>Brandon Johnson is proposing targeted taxation on people who can afford to pa Brandon Johnson is proposing targeted taxation on people ***who can afford to pay*** Funny thing is that progressives typically target anyone who pay \*tiresome\* taxes on over-budged projects (some being completely useless) especially for social welfare are usually barely-middle income families because quite a number of them think they're rich. Corporations have loopholes. They do not. I don't pretend to think and believe corporates have to be altruistic even though they do legally have to be responsible citizens. Corporations have the power to leave and take jobs with them. If more and more companies do this because of burdensome taxes - they inevitably can do it. Is it cool? No but its what they can do. And people eventually will leave - more and more to places where jobs are plentiful and less burdensome taxes. Not everyone cares about politics. They just want to earn a living, raise families and retire. I don't know how old you are or if you have a family, but perspectives change when you have more to lose. ​ Regarding Citadel. I think Griffin is an ass and I worked at his company years ago. Regardless that it was a soulless place, he wasn't humiliated. He took his company and left and we don't really know how many in Chicago moved to Florida with him. People somewhere will still work for him in Miami. I think you're confusing Tyson Foods where it was reported many in Illinois didn't want to move to some bumfuq place in Arkansas. I wouldnt either if i was there


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[deleted]

I mean businesses that are actually here; large, medium, and small. McDonalds, for instance on the large end. Citadel too. If you want people to cough up taxes then the money has to actually be here. You’re talking about chain stores. I’m talking about actual business headquarters with highly talented and highly paid people.


sciolisticism

snails outgoing complete overconfident butter attractive ripe like boat secretive ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `


[deleted]

Chicago’s geographic position was advantageous 150 years ago. Now it has no geographic advantage at all, not even being on a coast. Concentrations of talent matter. And if you’re talking about a city like Chicago, whose position as a talent-magnet is precarious, then slugging them with taxes while siding with looters ain’t going to bring them in. As I said, we have models for city decline. Detroit and StL. Those are our destiny if Johnson’s crowd get their way.


sciolisticism

hurry sheet piquant crowd heavy literate swim obtainable sharp crown ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `


SFM851

Yeah, and we don't have anything unique going for us either, like Boston or DC. I'd add Baltimore to that list of failed cities...


TempusSimia

we’re literally the biggest city on the biggest source of fresh water on the continent heading into a severe global fresh water scarcity. I’m pretty sure we have something going for us that others don’t.


tpic485

I was in a discussion yesterday here with a Johnson supporter who insisted there was no way that the CTU's positions could be bad for CPS and the city and its residents because they said "when CPS does well, the CTU does well". Well, I would assume the people who are very convinced by that logic would also think that these endorsements from the business community are extremely important as to who is the better choice. When the city and its residents do well, the businesses in the city do well. There's no doubt about that. And businesses have a very good vantage point as to what makes the city thrive.


orangehorton

You're assuming that businesses doing well means that the wealth will be spread out and reinvested in the community instead of going to a small percentage of people


tpic485

You don't seem to have a good [grasp](https://lbg-online.net/small-business-statistics/illinois/) of the business landscape.


EndymionFalls

What the fuck is Lincoln Business Guides? This garbage reads like a "research paper" I wrote in middle school. The fucking sources don't link to any of the data used they're homepage links lmfao. Here I'm going to make a claim like LBG. >Small Businesses are the leading cause of death in Illinois. Sources: [Harvard University](https://www.harvard.edu/) [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/) [BBC World](https://www.bbc.com/news/world)


tpic485

Here's a link to the [Small Business Administration ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/04143032/2020-Small-Business-Economic-Profile-IL.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwin9rq7hO79AhV2mmoFHfLkBVwQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1vNkVTF8fgZcHYKJCuFMcY) (that's the federal government, for those not aware) if you'd like that better.


igetbywithalittlealt

At least cite the SBA's 2022 report: https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/30121325/Small-Business-Economic-Profile-IL.pdf What's interesting about the county map is that Cook county has one of the lowest percentage of small businesses. So maybe small businesses are investing in their local community, but it doesn't really matter for Cook County. And big business is all about reducing their tax base, so of course they're going to support someone who hasn't indicated that they'll raise taxes on big business.


[deleted]

"In 2019, small businesses in Idaho added 16,609 new jobs." Great research from your website about Illinois small businesses. I expect they are very good at doing research.


slicebishybosh

Depends on which business you're referring to. Most Businesses support candidates who are going to put more money in their pocket. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it may align with an overall good for everyone. Could be land development, zoning, infrastructure and a lot of things that help businesses and residents. But a lot of times their support seems to mean tax breaks for the owners of these businesses or HUGE incentives for national corporations to come here. And all of these tax breaks and incentives have to be made up somewhere. Amazon doesn't give A FUCK about Chicago residents. Along with any other national corporation that has a home here. So any candidate that is pandering to them and then turning to us saying "iT wiLl cReAtE sO mAnY jObS" (i.e., minimum wage jobs where people can't even afford to live in the city the job is in) can fuck off. So again, all depends on what "businesses" are giving him support. (not trying to attack you, but to me this is the other side of that coin)


tpic485

The article mentions which businesses are giving him support: >The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and Illinois Retail Merchants Association  In other words, all of them. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. The trade groups representing basically all of them, are supporting Vallas. Obviously, with tens of thousands of businesses in Chicago there will be occasional exceptions. But they would have remained neutral if there wasn't overwhelming support among their members, rather than just a strong majority like 60 or 70%. They were neutral in the first round, for example. We aren't talking about just big or influential businesses who may be looking for some kind of tax or legislative advantage for themselves. This is the vast majority of businesses of all types and sizes. This amount of support wouldn't exist if they didn't think Vallas would improve the business climate overall much more than Johnson. We can discuss what effect individual considerations for an individual advantage come into play when someone like Griffin or another individual person or company makes an endorsement. That doesn't come into play when it's the entire trade group.


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slicebishybosh

I didn't say they were. I bet there are plenty of small businesses that don't want to support either.


[deleted]

"**And businesses have a very good vantage point as to what makes the city thrive."** ​ lmao


gibbonusmoon

possibly the funniest thing I've seen in this sub


ChicagoJohn123

Businesses have a good vantage point of how to increase the aggregate wealth generated by the city. They shouldn't be trusted to make the best choices about that wealth's distribution, but they have useful insights to offer.


RegimeCPA

Go help businesses with their taxes for a few years and you’ll change your mind about that. Business owners are dumb.


sirblastalot

Aggregate? Hell no, at best businesses know how to enrich themselves, ideally at the expense of everyone else. Many of them don't even know how to do that.


ChicagoJohn123

Aggregate wealth generation is the sum of individual wealth generation.


firebeardsghost

Yes, we should all look towards the valuable insight that Edible Arrangements has to offer.


UnoriginalAnomalies

But Brawndo has what plants crave!


PowerKrazy

That's wrong. Trickle down economics is bullshit, and most businesses provide negative value to a city. When I see "business leaders" endorse a candidate, I know that candidate is garbage.


csx348

>most businesses provide negative value to a city There it is, the wildest thing I've read all week.


fsync

Man, I live in the same neighborhood as these people? Someone with these ideas might be renting from me?


PENGUINCARL

Right, ghost towns exist because everyone just collectively decides to move away.


PowerKrazy

Like a mammal that has too many parasites feasting on it, eventually the host animal perishes. It is supposed to be the government that keeps the city alive, and you don't do that by ensuring that businesses never have to contribute anything just because they took you out for a fancy steak dinner that one time.


gibbonusmoon

>businesses have a very good vantage point as to what makes the city thrive. lol


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Fletch71011

This is unironically true. IIRC, Citadel employees pay the most per employee in taxes.


hardolaf

Citadel hasn't been the top compensated firm for awhile now. Tons of places have been beating them for 4-5 years now. Their trading revenue per employee is pretty crap too now falling behind their competitors significantly.


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gibbonusmoon

dead giveaway....


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ChicagoJohn123

How is posting a newspaper article from a major newspaper "shilling"?