Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to call for the largest property tax increase in modern Chicago history to raise enough money to make a major pension payment for police and firefighters next year,
The tax increase, despite its size, will not be enough, however, to cover all of the markers put down by the Chicago political machine in previous years, so
The mayor also plans to push a new garbage collection tax, a new per-ride fee on taxis and ride-hailing services such as Uber and a new tax on electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products.
This is not exclusively a Chicago phenomenon. Detroit has already been there and was finally forced into bankruptcy. The one-party, big city, political machines found it agreeable and easy to stay in power by making promises to the municipal unions (among others) that others would have to keep. So Mayor Emanuel is obliged to cover a
… major increase in police and fire pension payments that has been looming over City Hall since the General Assembly approved a state law when Mayor Richard M. Daley was in charge.
And as one Chicago Alderman says
“It’s not as if we weren’t warned, We have known for several years that the pension shortfall was going to cause us to make some really painful decisions, particularly if we didn’t receive any relief from Springfield, and we didn’t receive any relief from Springfield.”
Springfield being the capital of
The nation’s fifth most populous state [which] is entering its third month without a budget, and there are no signs longtime Democratic leaders and the first-term governor are close to an agreement on confronting a shortfall recently projected at $5 billion.
Sooner or later, the bill comes due. Question is, how many businesses in Chicago (and Illinois) will decided they aren’t going to stick around and pay it.
