As a Chicago native, I have watched my home city unravel under the policies of Mayor Brandon Johnson and the ultra-left city council. Controlled by groups like the teachers’ union, the city has continued to spend lavishly on progressive causes and bloated pension funds while destroying its own economy. The city has a more than $1 billion budget gap, with a roughly $150 million deficit. Roughly, two-fifths of the budget is now going toward debt service and pension costs. The city council is following a familiar death spiral. It is turning to higher taxes against the very industries that it needs to drive the economy. That now includes a roughly 20 percent tourist tax on hotels. These politicians are doing what the Chicago fire failed to achieve: kill a major city.
Johnson has been pushing for irresponsible measures to grab cash now and pay later schemes. Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) lost a fight to secure a $200 million loan to avoid having to reduce the budget or staff. Johnson and the union pushed for a corporate “head tax.” Barely able to convince many companies to stay in the state, Chicago would actually make it more costly to hire Chicagoans with an additional $ 21-per-employee tax.
The city council just approved an $830 million borrowing plan to finance infrastructure projects by selling bonds. Notably, the council had to bar Johnson from giving the money to the teachers’ union, given his history of dependency on the union. However, the bond will now make the debt crisis even more acute. The bond agreement allows someone else to pay the massive accrued debt after 20 years.
Chicago now spends 40% of its money on debt servicing.
At the same time, Johnson has pushed for city-run grocery stores, and his government has stopped buying treasury bonds for political reasons.
Now, pursuant to Ordinance 2026-0022544, the city will raise the tax on hotel rooms within that district to 19% from 17.5%, which includes a combined city, county, and state tax, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The increase will apply to any hotels with more than 100 rooms.
Hotel costs are already prohibitively high, and the added tax hits the convention tourism side of the economy.
The editorial board of the Washington Post took note of Chicago’s worsening situation and wrote “it takes a long time to kill a city, and the bigger the city, the longer it takes.”
It appears those who worship big government will never learn that the programs they want to believe will help people are little more than politicians’ opportunity to pad their own wallets. It’s one big criminal enterprise that useful idiots continue funding.
I propose with all seriousness and gravity, that woke pay a one time tax of every penny they’ve got to relieve their guilt for failure to pay their fair share.
We may never hear from then again. Value: PRICELESS
Well. I’ll be darn.
____________________
Bloomberg) — Residents exiting Massachusetts took a net of $4.2 billion in adjusted gross income with them in 2023, one of the largest totals in the country, after a tax on millionaires took effect.
The amount was an 8% year-over-year increase, according to Internal Revenue Service data, even as the total number of taxpayers leaving the state slowed.
In Other News: “Blues Brothers Race to Chicago Treasury Office to Pay City’s Bond Debt”
~+~
Jake and Elwood Blues, began their third mission from God, to pay Chicago’s nearly delinquent bond service payment before the Bankruptcy Court forecloses on the city. Having worked performing gigs since 2000 to raise money for the city’s anticipated 2026 financial debacle, the brothers eluded Good Old Boys, half the police cars in Cook County, the Illinois Antifa, and a crazy chick packing an M4. With their surplus 2012 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor that was stuffed to the brim with $100 bills and 400 lbs in gold bars, they arrived just in time before the 5:00 closing time of the office.
When the mayor was asked if he approved of methods of the brothers, which led to the destruction of two malls, 77 patrol cars, a building collapsed and another venue shot up by a gun totin’ scorned woman, the mayor candidly declared: “We’ll, they would have moved out of the city eventually anyways.
Really: watching the faithful on the left waiting for their party to magically ‘wake up’ is painful. This is who the modern left are. Accept it fully so we can move ahead, please.
UGLY Billion Dollar Obama Presidential Library represents Chicago???
It looks like a tombstone so perhaps the Obama edifice does represent Chicago.
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This is what they voted for. They should be pleased.
Everyone talks about Darwin, but nobody wants to give him room to work.
Well that is certainly true. And until proven otherwise, I’m going with this: The ceiling of government competence is set by the floor of the citizen’s capacity for self-government.
OT. TSA is down. Good! Get rid of them and deploy ICE instead. X-rays and pat downs every time you fly. 20 years ago flying was the same as a taxi ride. Buy ticket in advance, arrive and board. How much time? The time it took to walk to the terminal.
Other news- Chavez, Huerta love affair. Really Dolores, TWO babies? ✌
On Huerta’s side there are other females coming forward including minors. Huerta gave her two babies to other families? Chavez had 8 children with his wife in addition? If your Mexican get a DNA done. You might be a Chavez. 😏.
^^^ you’re not your
It gets worse. Did the two children find out via CNN? Some things you just take to the grave. Oh 😒
Toodles
^^^ The purpose of this confession? 15 year olds commonly marry in Mexico. Chavez was a farm worker and leaders of unions must also be unusually moral and ethical? I’m so disappointed?
^^^ Day after– Ms Huerta wants to be recognized as a co-founder of UFW for women. She wants a statue, an idol.
You go girl…
The one thing the Chicago Fire of 1871 did that The Chicago Fire of 2026 has yet to turn is:
START OVER – Start all Over again.
Somethings need to Die in order for new thing to Begin.
The Chicago Fire of 1871 and the ‘Great Rebuilding’
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/chicago-fire-1871-and-great-rebuilding/
Those dems really had civil capacity down and engaged in the democracy. No one said it really had to engulf truth and lawfullness.
^^^ civic capacity. Oops. They certainly aren’t civil.
^^^ civic capacity
The obvious solution is to eliminate corporate taxes so that the income for Chicago drops to zero. It sure will attract big business who can use their position to cut wages and increase taxes on the poor and middle class, eventually bankrupting the city and rendering the majority of the population homeless while also eliminating all the pension debt by bankruptcy in order to bankrupt all the retirees and forcing them back into the workforce at low incomes by only offering part time/no benefits work.
The Republican dream. Billionaires surrounded by the homeless.
That is actually the Democratic dream as we see it playing out intentionally in cities like San Francisco. Wealthy Dems see the value of their property go up when the contrast is with the surrounding dystopia that they create for that very purpose. You seem to be very biased against Republicans but do you ask yourself why virtually every deep blue city is in serious decline, and some have become hellholes? And do you even hear yourself when you post a comment like that in reaction to a story about a deep blue city with a socialist mayor going bankrupt?
There is no such thing as corporate taxes.
Corporations have no money.
They obtain money from customers.
The customers pay the corporate tax.
The corporate tax is a customer tax.
And you are an idiot, worse than that parasitic and sickly invalid and drunkard, Karl Marx.
And what does that say about the ne’er-do-wells who read your rubbish?
LMAO, you libs actually believe the shit you say and endorse.
You need more bran in your diet which will lower your anger at the world as you see it. Next time you see a mirror, hold it up to your face and ask yourself why are you so mad at the world.
OT & OOPS!
Iran just fired 2 missiles that could reach Diego Garcia.
If that is the limit of their range they could reach most of Europe.
But that probably is not their limit; they likely can reach all of Europe.
And they are big enough to carry the atomic bombs Iran was working on.
Considering the crazy “shoot at everyone” strategy they are employing now, what would have happened if they had put nuclear warheads on those missiles?
Europe and much of the world should be on its knees thanking America and Israel for stepping up.
On another matter, a few months back I posted here that Israel has a bigger and better military than UK, Germany and France combined. Not so hard to believe now, is it? What a great ally!
“Considering the crazy “shoot at everyone” strategy they are employing now, what would have happened if they had put nuclear warheads on those missiles?”
That is the trenchant question for those who favored delaying the neutralization of Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. The West has adopted a culture of life, while the Islamist ideology embraces a culture of death. They would die happy if they took everyone else down with them, even in a nuclear Armageddon.
S. Meyer– “They would die happy if they took everyone else down with them, even in a nuclear Armageddon.”
Yes. They would. I just hope it hasn’t been too late.
The folks who cheated to get Biden in may have much to answer for [besides everything else] if it is too late. Some Iranian official has already said it is time to assemble a nuclear weapon. They want to but I am hoping they can’t.
The reach of the Diego Garcia missiles ought to be a b***h slap waking Europe but the danger was always obvious yet ignored so I am skeptical of much happening there. Maybe more stern memoranda between committees.
Good post. Europe, namely England and France, like to tell others what to do, but can’t seem to get around to asking why they aren’t supporting freedom. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw where a young boy was knocking on doors asking for money since he was poor. The lady at the well-to-do home gave him 3 pennies which seems to be how the “English” are viewing their insular world.
Iran is determined to purchase a nuclear weapon from NK or Russia right now, if they haven’t already. ARMAGEDDON IS HERE.
Dear Professor, after your telling of the pending demise of your home city I must admit that I shed a little tear. Well perhaps a little misting of the eye? Maybe just a tiny speck of dust that caused me to blink. I am saddened by the thought of the smell, no matter how deserving that will waft through the city when the garbage men go on strike. Such a wailing of whoa will be heard when the illegal aliens don’t get their welfare check. Next comes a pitiful cry when the homeless are told that they will just have to stay on the street. The comeuppance will indeed be a joy to behold for the voters of Chicago. So sad. So Glad.