Good Luck, Chicago
Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson celebrates his election Tuesday. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
OPINION
Shortly after the Associated Press called the Chicago mayoral race for Brandon Johnson last night, I received a couple of texts.
“Suburban home values are about to go through the roof,” commented a suburban politico.
“Pardon my slow response, I’m just crying into my property tax bill,” texted a city resident after I checked in.
There’s a helluva lot to be skeptical about a Democratic Socialist-backed, defund-the-police preaching, raise-taxes-on-everyone, never-governed-a-thing-in-his-life Mayor-Elect.
I was (wrongly) convinced Vallas would win the race based on polling that showed a majority of voters had public safety as their top issue. Obviously, the electorate turned out to be a lot younger and a lot more progressive than the polling we had seen and if there were any reliable exit polls, I’m sure public safety wouldn’t be as high on the list.
It’s a real quandary in a city where there have already been over 115 murders this year and armed car jackings have tripled. So what do voters do? Elect a guy who has been a spokesman for the “Defund the Police” movement in the city.
Tyson Foods, Boeing, Caterpillar and Citadel are among the recent departures from a city with an anti-business reputation. Johnson’s solution?
He wants to raise the real estate transfer tax, add a $4-per-month per-employee “head tax” on large employers in the city, tax securities traded, and increase the hotel tax. There’s also talk of a commuter tax. Good luck with that.
He claims he won’t raise property taxes, but with a wish list of free stuff for everyone a mile long, how is it even possible?
Some of his comments last night made one wonder if Johnson has any concept of the the fraught city budget.
None of that addresses how he would handle the Chicago Teachers Union, where he was previously employed, in contract negotiations or to push the union to address painfully low proficiency numbers in reading and math.
Four years ago, Lori Lightfoot was elected with great promise as a reformer and the anti-machine “nobody nobody sent.” Hopefully Johnson can move to the center and work to make sure there won’t be nobody left.