Much attention is rightly being paid to how city policy can address the need to provide young people with meaningful opportunities for work.
The stakes couldn’t be higher.
An ominously titled document by close confidants of new Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson states the new administration’s top priority is to take more money from households making $100,000 or more to fund what they claim is a “just Chicago.”
Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson seeks to triple the real estate transfer tax on real estate valued at $1 million or more. That would include apartment complexes. In Los Angeles, a similar tax has hurt housing.
Chicago Public Schools principals already make nearly 30% more than their peers in the rest of the state. A newly signed law allows them to unionize and push for even more.
Illinois reported the largest outmigration of residents of any state during 2021, marking the 8th consecutive year of population decline in Illinois. Chicago similarly saw more residents move away than any metropolitan area in the nation.
Chicago Teachers Union takes credit for spreading the “new gospel” of union strike power across the nation. If the CTU-backed Amendment 1 passes in November, it will lock the union’s militant tactics into the state constitution, to the detriment of children and parents statewide.
Parents of Chicago Public Schools students sued to end the “remote work action” by Chicago Teachers Union members that kept 340,000 students out of classrooms for five days. The walkout is over, but the lawsuit is continuing to prevent the next illegal strike.
CPS rejected a proposal from the Chicago Teachers Union that would have tested randomly selected students. Mayor Lighfoot says parents opting in is non-negotiable
Chicago and the state of Illinois are notorious around the country for high-profile corruption convictions. Rod Blagojevich settles back in after the former governor’s imprisonment for corruption.
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.