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.
Here is a view about Chicago. For a black candidate, most of the blacks will vote for a black. In the case of Brandon Johnson, they know he’s never run anything bey9ondhis checking account. But they hope, and continue to hope he will treat them better than a white. Can’t blame them. Also, the very liberal whites will vote for him – because they must prove they’re liberal. They also know Johnson is incompetent. “The remaining voters either don’t care or have mixed feeling.
Or maybe, the white people who vote for a predictably incompetent official, either black or white, are instead subconsciously exhibiting the evolutionary principle of competitive disadvantage whereby their vote, if successful, will serve to reduce the ability of others to compete with their progeny, effectively increasing the probability that their genes will reproduce and survive more so than their competitors.
Yes, people tend to vote for people they look like. The exceptions are those with massive guilt complexes left over from childhood.
The Democrats are now fully nihilist. That is, they reject all facts which clash with their leftist ideology and all human values, honesty, competence, integrity, excellence, beauty, etc. as such. As a direct result, they see no reason to work for a living or make or create anything. As far as they are concerned, all they have to do is grab money at gun point from those who actually work for living to pay for everything (or in reality the same thing – borrow with no means or intention of paying back). The result is the ongoing destruction of another great city (as it was when I used to live there). Democrats are vicious and corrupt precisely because their chosen ideology has rendered them voluntarily mindless. They deserve nothing but our complete contempt and if we choose, putting as much distance between them and ourselves as we can.
The Democrats are now fully nihilist
🎯 Bingo.
The latin word nihil means nothing. Democrats embrace, nay often repeat, the nihilistic mantra, coined by Friedrich Nietzsche, will to power.
But who today is familiar with Friedrich Nietzsche? Hence the decay of our civilization. You can’t defend what you do not know; you will not die for something of which you would not protect, safeguard, preserve. So yes, Democrats reflect nihilism but Americans did as well in their behaviors, e.g. ~ 75% of Americans are physically unfit, yet Americans demand free healthcare.
What does Nihilism mean?—That the highest values are losing their value. – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism’s] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength – Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche
God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we – we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world. – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52914/52914-h/52914-h.htm
Contrast the above with the lived example of the person whom the Catholic Church remembers today with the Memorial of Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Estovir,
Good comment.
As I noted the other day in one of the good professor’s columns, the rise of the Nihilism Violent Extremist. While it is not limited to the white supremacy, Neo-Nazi types, it may be becoming more prevalent in the trans community who tend to see Catholics as the enemy. But, then again, there are the nihilistic incels who hate women. I suspect our far leftist annony moron to be one of these people.
You may have already seen it but Malcolm Gladwell is taking a beating by Matt Taibbi and JK Rowling for his sudden shift of opinion on the trans stuff. I have read several of Gladwell’s books (earlier stuff) but lost interest in him for his abysmal, gas-lighting debate vs Matt Taibbi. So Taibbi’s recent reply to Gladwell’s trans pivot was on target and well deserved.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
Dear @Gladwell
Now that you’ve admitted to being too afraid to tell the truth while working in media, please feel free to apologize for accusing me of longing for the days of Jim Crow in the 2002 (sic) Munk debate on “Should we trust mainstream media”? This was after I mentioned that Walter Cronkite had twice been voted the most trusted person in America.
By the way, Cronkite was voted the most trusted man for the first time in 1973. He earned that distinction for the last time in 1995, 15 years after he stopped being a CBS anchor. So in addition to everything else, you were wrong about the time period I was referencing.
Feel free to apologize for that as well.
Sincerely
@mtaibbi
https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1963279007509512579
JK Rowling took it up a notch, excerpt follows:
No. He hasn’t changed. He’s merely sensed a shift in what it’s acceptable to say and feels safe to align himself with the new consensus, excuses for his previous behaviour to the fore. He isn’t an ally, he’s a weathervane.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1963927077213602131
Read her entire post on her X account. Withering! or as you would say, Marvelous!
🤡
The federal government is a great “teacher” of the public. Its actions set a model for normality. Since 1933, the federal government has taught us that overspending, borrowing, recklessly printing money, and “kicking the can down the road” in tight spots, make a responsible fiscal policy. Now all levels of government are irresponsible, and so is a major part of the populace.
First, the came for the Jews, and I said nothing. Then they came for the comedians, and I said nothing. Then they came for our kids…
https://apnews.com/article/graham-linehan-father-ted-x-posts-arrest-b5728b93a1e5b3b0d833c3321c8ea51d
Can’t he find a federal district court judge somewhere around there to issue an injunction requiring a bank to lend the money? That seems to be the go-to for commies in America today.
I can actually see a federal court issuing such a ruling:
Chicago has a black mayor. Refusing to lend to a city because the mayor is black is racist. Therefore, the law says banks must lend money to Chicago.
“Even the CPS staff was raising alarms over Johnson’s new math approach to loans.”
Is that the same “new math” that the Chicago Public Schools teachers use to teach mathematics to Chicago public school students, less than 20% of whom “graduate” able to do math at grade level? For the arithmetically challenged, that equals more than 80% of Chicago Public School students are graduated from high school unable to do high school level mathematics. One must question if this failure is by design, rather than by chance alone. It’s certainly not worth increasing unsustainable CPS debt that Chicago and Illinois will eventually attempt to unload on American taxpayers via a bailout. No you don’t.
They can’t read either. There needs to be a complete overhaul of the education system in Chicago. They’re graduating kids who can’t find a job because they’re basically illiterate. No wonder there is so much crime. I think I read somewhere where Johnson came out of the school system as a superintendent or some other high paying job. Based on what their school system looks like, I was surprised he was even elected in the first place.
Wait. Where is X and all the left wing fools today?
This mess is there making.
DustOff,
Ever notice when something is so obviously and disastrously bad, a situation made by bad Democrat policies, there is no defense thereof, they do not comment? Rather, we get stupid and moronic comments from the annony moron that amount to nothing. That is when I will respond to the annony moron with uncomfortable facts they would rather not discuss or even admit to the facts.
Every city run by democrats face the same dilemma. They give taxpayers money to their supporters knowing that they’ll be long gone when the tab has come due. The majority of real estate taxes go to school salaries and yet students are failing. School boards are manned by retired teachers, do think they’re going to be judicious with budgets? Most civil servants pension funds and perks are unfunded and one day will fail. Who is to blame, the voters!
There has never been reasonable fiscal policies in the city in my lifetime.
This⬆️⬆️⬆️says it all, Chicago finances in ALL muni’s, city, county and State. NOT just CPS🙀🙀🙀 Can kicking won’t/can’t go on forever.
“When you put a Black man in charge of a city . . .”
There are those who still fall for that shtick?!
Well, play it out. More money going out than coming in. At some point, the underfunded and too costly liabilities i.e. pensions will become insolvent and soon afterwards so will the city. It is not rocket science. That light they think they see as the light at the end of the tunnel, is really the head light of the oncoming freight train. Detroit was first. Soon to be Chicago. What city is next? Baltimore? DC? Why stop at failed Blue cities? How about the failed state of IL or CA?
So now it’s (racism.)
Jezzz you fools are broke. Typical libs. It’s always race.
Perhaps its time for a fed bailout. That give feds the power to dictate EXACTLY how the money will be spent . Dept of Ed can write the curriculum and issue teacher standards a d requirements, write student discipline codes etc. Additionally feds can take over police dept. , upgrade local laws end sanctuary city policies etc. Chicago either agrees or they get no money.
Do not make the mistake of beleiving that more government will fix the problems created by government.
Hopefully we are getting rid of the Federal Department of Education. The Federal govenrment will not be run by Trump forever, when it is not, absent its on unavoidable fiscal crisis, chicago schools will be bailed out by the Feds.
Let Chicago go bankrupt.
John Say,
I agree. Let Chicago do bankrupt.
A week or so ago, a guest on Bill Maher’s podcast stated that he wanted Zohran Mamdani to win the NYC mayor race. He simply put, to paraphrase, then we would have a closed, in real time example of how socialism fails, again, for all to see. It is not like Chicago is enough, but with Zohran Mamdani, it would put the far leftists Democrats on stage for the whole nation to see their policies are not just bad, but really bad.
Watch this powerful insightful documentary by Chris Pabst about the Baltimore City Public School System.
https://youtu.be/pMQK1oKDvso?si=4-GoeSBAPGjvRe1Q
I am sure everyone on this post has eye witnessed the “everything is Racism” cry from these race hustlers. It rings hollow!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in Wisconsin. I used to look forward to trips to Chicago. It’s just 90 minutes by train from my house. Now my wife and I talk about going but we never do. Too much crime.
Race Card again.
Yep it’s all the libs have…
Want to know what the future of NYC will look like if Madman Mandami wins. Look at Chicago.
Indeed! New York will get worse. Chicago will be under. Socialist and communist ideals is a disaster! USA wake up
If the voters of NY go that direction. Well enjoy all the mess you’ll get and hard too
I don’t understand how there is so much money dumped into public schools and so many of the kids being so far behind. The public school system is a failure. They have become indoctrination camps. Education starts in the home. Until the parents of these students take control and start making kids do their homework and behave in school the cycle of poorly educated kids will continue. ¹
Why do homework when they’ll just raise your grade from an F to a C so that they can say you passed. Yet somehow when testing day comes the kids can’t read the questions much less answer them.
Well, the teachers are fat and happy. The time to pay the piper is nigh and the payment will be made by the average citizen taxpayer. The voters elect them again and joyfully exclaim “hit me again master.”
One of the many problems of the Chicago Public School System appears to be, according to this article, the money isn’t being dumped into the school systems. It’s being dumped into the Chicago Teacher’s Union. If the monies were utilized to hire teachers capable of teaching and working with these children, working with the parents to improve the outcome in the classroom, they might be able to actually help these children learn. Instead the massive “school budget” is not invested in the Chicago Public School System. It’s all going into the Teacher’s Union and their retirement fund, at the expense of the children’s education. The Teacher’s Union is the only entity benefiting from any of this. And yes, when a Marxist city government takes hold, the schools become indoctrination camps. Until the citizens of Chicago decide to take back their City, stop electing mayors like Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson, they’re going to keep going down the endless Marxist rabbit hole to nowhere! This is where Marxism and Communism get their foot in the door.
Threeper Rob – There isn’t much connection between spending money and getting results. Almost everything depends on the attitudes and aptitudes of the students. As Jacque Barzun wrote in a letter to the New York Times: “You can’t TEACH anyone anything.”
Our smartest President was Abraham Lincoln. He had less than one year of formal education.
“Lincoln’s self-education started when he was a boy in Kentucky and continued when his family moved to Indiana in 1816. ‘Collectively, he had maybe a year of formal schooling, but then he pursued information on his own through reading and through borrowing books from people in his area,” said Deisinger.”
https://www.monmouthcollege.edu/live/news/4560-the-education-of-lincoln
Everything you want to know about Chicago on X: https://x.com/SubxNews. Lots of crazy videos of Brandon.
Schools are rewarded for failure. The worse they make it, the more they get!
STOP using federal money…to enable this!
time to OUTLAW public unions!
They are the political army of the Democrats
They bribe Democrats lavish them with money…completely AGAINST THE LAW
Defund Them
Also end federal aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges
Decentralize power…stop rewarding failure with MORE AID!
I’m a UNION alien, always have been, my entire Life. But in the late 1980’s PUBLIC Unions became super powerful by essentially buying off politicians, at least in California. The problem is public unions do not have competition, and they can essentially not go out of business, which is the balance and check needed when you’re collective bargaining. As a result they’ve gotten ridiculous compensation packages especially related to the pensions and especially for Public safety pensions. Public safety pensions in California, 3%@50, are worth more than the base pay.