Mayor Brandon Johnson has long been as popular as Ebola in Chicago, a politician who has continued to spend wildly while virtually chasing businesses from the city. Johnson was brought to power with the support of the Chicago Teacher’s Union (CTU) and proceeded to approve bloated contracts and pensions demanded by the CTU. Now, both Johnson and CTU have lost a fight to secure a $200 million loan to avoid the need to reduce the budget or staff. A bill has come due, and Johnson is claiming that the criticism by some of his closest allies is due to racism.
Johnson fired the head of the school board and packed the board with his allies in order to secure the loan. However, in the end, his allies could not sign off on what would be a disastrous short-term, high-rate loan to plug the hole in the budget.
Chicago politicians have repeatedly yielded to the CTU on massive pension deals to secure the union’s support and contributions in elections. The pensions have triggered financial crises for years. Johnson’s solution was familiar: just borrow more money at ruinous rates to kick the can down the road. In the meantime, the public schools (despite a $10.2 billion budget) continue to fail students, particularly minority and poor students, in a system producing dismal performance and proficiency levels.
The $10.2 billion budget, approved by 12 of 20 board members, closes a $734 million deficit but does not include a loan, which the mayor’s office sought to cover the pension payment and other unexpected shortfalls.
After the pandemic, money from the Biden Administration ran out, and Johnson actually had to balance the books. That would have involved confronting the CPS staff and the powerful union. Instead, Johnson wanted to sign off on another loan. When the former head of the board floated cutting back on the budget and staff, Johnson and the CTU forced him out.
Even the CPS staff was raising alarms over Johnson’s new math approach to loans. They noted that this loan would be signed without any promise of future revenue. In other words, it would just push the CPS and city closer to insolvency through “crisis borrowing.” The result would be a cascading failure, with expected credit downgrades, despite the fact that CPS bonds are already rated at junk status due to past overborrowing to plug budget gaps.
Johnson, however, thinks that money magically appears with loans and that he can simply continue to borrow his way out of any budget shortfall.
It was too much even for the city council, which has approved overspending for years.
Johnson responded in signature fashion and accused his own allies, many of whom are minorities, of effective racism: “When you put a Black man in charge of a city, all of a sudden everybody wants to be an accountant.”
Of course, one does not have to be an accountant to see that borrowing almost a quarter of a billion dollars for a system near bankruptcy is irrational, especially when it involves a high-rate loan with no revenue stream to support the added burden. It is like a citizen spending wildly on a credit card without any means to pay the principal, let alone the interest. The difference is that Johnson is risking insolvency for an entire city, suppressing creditworthiness and increasing the costs of future loans.
CPS itself teaches personal finance subjects to students, though it is so heavily laden with jargon that it is hard to tell it from a social studies class. The course description on “educating for equity” seems geared more to balancing societal shortcomings than personal budgets:
“Financial Education begins with students’ identities and memberships in our communities, extends into disciplinary inquiry-based, culturally sustaining instruction that educates for broad economic inclusion, mobility, critical examination of existing systems, and financially secure individuals and communities.”
In the meantime, Chicago is now facing a $1.15 billion shortfall and Johnson is calling for increasing taxes on the wealthy and businesses despite the fact that Chicago is losing both businesses and residents. The incoming citizens are largely immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, in the sanctuary city. That has driven expenditures even higher for the city while it loses businesses and residents needed for its tax base.
As a Chicagoan, I have no illusions about the city politics. There has never been reasonable fiscal policies in the city in my lifetime. However, Johnson has moved from the dismissive to delusional in ignoring the economic realities growing in the city.
Must be that New Woke Math, à la ‘2 + 2 =5’ 😂
The comment with the phrase black communist mayor is deleted.
I guess the black censor here took offense.
Blacks always support blacks when their in the wrong.
Of course … racism explains everything! Just look at the words painted at the end zones and along the sidelines of NFL football teams, whose games are preceded by the “Black National” Anthem.
If Pres. Kennedy’s Executive Order created the behemoth that is Federal Unions why can’t an Executive Order from another President reverse it? A question to the lawyers out there.
Yet I laugh when some folks say JFK was a good guy.
BULL
Let’s be honest, it’s every blue urban city… It isn’t the land it’s the democrat/union collusion in each instance enabled by voters that said school systems have kept indoctrinated and ignorant. That is why the dems are continually re-elected. Sort of a Stockholm Syndrome situation.
As long as people from across the political spectrum view actions by political opponents, that actually secure the rights of all people, as a loss for their party, then nothing will change.
“educating for equity” and the course description is the most ridiculous thing I have seen in a very long time. Evidently teaching financial responsibility is not a practical thing to do.
I will never understand how these people keep getting voted in.
Johnson and chicago are a prime example of what is going to happen with Mamdani and New York when he is elected.
As odd as this may sound, I agree with George Will in that he hopes that mamdani is elected and NYC crashes and burns to the ground so that the rest of America can finally see just what islamic socialists are planning to do to the rest of the nation.
it is the only cure, let the left endure decades of “North Korea”, they will be screaming to be let into “South Korea”
I am so sorry that the word “racism” ever was created and entered into our lexicon. It has become the excuse, rationale, and scapegoat for all things known and unknown, imagined or real.
(oops. should read, “all things untoward, known and unknown…”)
I think the appropriate term for this debacle is a Death Spiral. Circling the Drain would be a good alternative description.
They might get a loan if the Mayor, His Board and the CTU pledge their own personal assets as collateral and sign on the loan contract. I would not think the citizens of Chicago would be happy about raising taxes but you never know since those same citizens elected this idiot
Yes, and since borrowing more money with no obvious means to repay the loan is such a great idea, Pritzker should offer to use his family fortune as collateral.
I used to live in California (65 years), 32 in Santa Cruz County. The whole state is run by the unions and the unfunded liabilities continue to increase. Eventually they will or are facing the same problem as Chicago. When will they be denied loans, when will the pensions have to be cut, when will the insurance payments exceed the pensions except for the few at the top. We are now facing a 25% increase in our insurance premiums that will essentially wipe out the small pension my wife gets. I imagine as more businesses leave and the tax base goes with it our costs will eventually lead us to pay CALPERS more than she makes.
Born and raised in San Diego, Left in 1995. What a shame, it was a nice city to live in, but not anymore.
Typical of Democrat controlled State Governments. Washington has the same problem with a bloated Public School System. $21,000 per Student being eaten up by Teachers and Staff salaries and benefits. Washington is ranked 35th in Student graduations. Yet we have grade a school teacher making $202,000 per year. It is not uncommon for a teacher to have received a $20,000 to $30,000 salary increase in the last year. Non-Certified other educators making as high as $128,000 per year.
I believe this year that Washington State will give the Teachers Union $80 million not counting union dues.
Public Schools have become a Grift. Unions, Politicians, and Teachers making out like Bandits, the Students and Taxpayers not so much!
Even better, by law the teachers can not go on strike, but year after year they do. The governor and the dem-o-rats do zip.
It was several decades ago, Detroit was bankrupt, and went into receivership with the state taking over for a prolonged period. All the usual name-calling back then too. Not too many years after that, Kilpatric went to jail for numerous offenses. The elephant in the room is no coincidence. It’s systemic corruption by a certain class of people. You fill in the blanks.
Theres a story in the local news of a school district in Claremont NH that mismanaged (no auditing or receipts) federal funds for several years and now Claremont NH school district is 5 mil short in the school budget. The board director is on paid leave.
Another incident of liberals spending money wildly without accountability. Guess, as in Chicago, they all thought they would get money for the asking. Then Trump became POTUS.
Chicango’s chickens have come home to roost!
I honestly can’t decide if Johnson is obtuse, incompetent, or just totally mental; and the unions have transmogrified into quite a monster over the past couple of decades. What a mess.
Unions are run like our Congress is run in that they are a hierarchy wherein the Masses are there to feed ($$$) the Top echelon. Name ‘1’ Union that the Top Officials don’t take one red-cent. So the same for Our Legislature(s) [Local, State, Fed.]. Big City Unions are the worst, as they work with Local Officials and Lawyers from both sides (Local Rules & Laws) to keep the Gate-Keeping of Trade Workers in their control to feed ($) the systemic Greed (a.k.a.: ‘It’s a Racket’)
It’s why you can’t find Young people joining the Trades (They have gotten wise to the Game), and only State and Large City local union groups are left to make a big noise in politics. The reality is that they are not such a big group anymore and not as strong as they would like you to believe in them.
Amusing to see the Union Officials ‘biting the hand that feeds Them’ and Union Members ‘biting the hand that feeds Them’, It’s like a cannibalization that has inevitably come to the end when the last piece of flesh is swallowed.
Former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan Sentenced to Seven and a Half Years in Prison After Corruption Conviction
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/pr/former-illinois-speaker-house-michael-j-madigan-sentenced-seven-and-half-years-prison#
Squad’s Ilhan Omar sees her wealth soar while serving her fourth House term
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/sep/2/squads-ilhan-omar-sees-wealth-soar-serving-fourth-house-term/
James, why can’t it be all three?
Chicago politics brought America Barrack Hussein Obama. A fledgling Senator of questionable Muslim background (Barry Sotero) during a time of two separate wars with radical Islam. Consider that and look where his tenure as President has delivered America. Why would this be any different, America for sale.
What did he think was going to happen? Anyone could see this coming, that the city couldn’t continue on this path. Was he planning to stick the next guy with an even worse mess? And he believes it’s racism that denies him the ability to do this?
Like many Dem governors and mayors, he expects a bailout by a Dem controlled federal government. But the GOP won the presidency and both houses of Congress. The clock is continuing the countdown towards insolvency. The question is can he hold the remainder of Trumps term in hopes of a Dem taker over in ‘29
The rot in Chicago goes back generations.
Mind boggling
Frustrating to say the least. The self-serving CTU literally taking millions from the public to fill their pockets and pensions.
Can it be stopped. No, sadly, never.
Whether liberals or conservatives, teachers unions are the biggest ( just one of many unions) using political power to enrich themselves and their comrades thanks to a black communist mayor.
Here in RI, its no different.