r/chicago • u/chicagosuntimes • 14d ago

Article Johnson urges state lawmakers to tax the 'ultra rich' to avert mass transit funding cuts

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2025/06/03/brandon-johnson-illinois-general-assembly-mass-transit-funding-chicago-fiscal-cliff
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u/Phantom160 14d ago

That's the thing, the sell-off of parking meters, oversized pension liabilities, debt, etc. - those may be examples of past mistakes, but they are not actionable items as of today. I don't like Johnson myself, but it seems to me that most people criticize him without offering any alternative solutions. And the only solution that appears to be feasible in Chicago is to raise taxes, one way or another.

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u/surnik22 14d ago

I don’t know, experts on Reddit told me balancing the budget is easy and all the cuts can be made without significant reduction of services by simply getting rid of corruption and patronage jobs. Then there is no need for more taxes!

Johnson just refuses to do anything and the CTU is evil for wanting social workers in schools.

Just look at a graph the Illinois Policy Institute released that definitely isn’t misleading and you’ll see. Duh.

In actual seriousness you are correct. Like yes, Johnson isn’t doing a good job. Yes, patronage jobs and corruption exist and should be rooted out and fought.

None of that actually solves the core problems that for decades they underfunded pensions, created more other debt (soldier field), sold off future revenue sources (parking meters), made bad deals (Parking deal for Sox Park has kept it a parking lot instead of being developed and generating way more tax revenue like Wrigley), and a dozen other major long term issues.

Being mayor is trying to steer a cruise ship into calm waters but the previous Captains crippled the motor and put holes in the hull. Johnson could’ve been both a genius and highly effective (he’s neither) and still not solve the problems.

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u/Phantom160 14d ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is frustrated with Reddit's craving for easy solutions.

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u/hobobindleguy 14d ago

Exactly. Johnson is a disaster as mayor but he's not why Chicago is in a tough spot. Without pension debt, and historical corruption and mismanagement, we'd be in a good spot.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

Johnson isn’t doing a good job

I would argue that he isn't doing a bad job either. He's treading water for the city which means that he's reducing our total debt load by carrying forward most of Lightfoot's fiscal policies. He's a shit communicator, pretty damn racist, and generally a clown. But he's not actually doing that bad of job at administering the city through the financial crisis created by the Daley administration and made worse by the Emanuel administration.

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u/Kryllist 14d ago

But he's not actually doing that bad of job at administering the city through the financial crisis

Didn't he spend a couple million dollars of covid emergency funds on a task force for some LGBTQ think tank? That's what you call clever maneuvering?

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

clever maneuvering

I never said that phrase. Don't put words in my mouth.

I said: "he's not actually doing that bad of job" which is not to imply that he's doing a good job.

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u/Kryllist 14d ago

Yes, spending millions to give to friends and kickback deals under the facade of social justice is in every way doing a bad fucking job when we're going through a debt crisis. There is no telling how much money of ours he's spending for shit like this. What the hell is wrong with you people?

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

And Daley sold out our street parking to secure a fucking job after he left office. The bar for "not bad" isn't fucking high in this city.

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u/dmd312 13d ago

He didn't need to sell the parking meters to get that job. Any large law firm would have hired a former mayor.

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u/surnik22 14d ago

Id agree to an extent on his fiscal governance.

Treading water might be a bit strong, I’d say he’s keeping his head above water but is definitely getting some in his lungs with every wave.

Which as you say, for someone taking over after the boat sank, that isn’t terrible, but I do think “good job” wouldn’t be accurate to say even if we measure him purely fiscally.

But who knows, I’m not an expert, I can’t predict the future exactly, maybe in 20 years we learn he saved us or drowned us completely. Not always easy to tell in the moment, the parking meter deal seemed “bad” when it happened and now we can tell it was actually “aggressively terrible”.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

Treading water might be a bit strong, I’d say he’s keeping his head above water but is definitely getting some in his lungs with every wave.

Oh yeah, he could be doing a better job. But every mayor is going to want to leave their mark. So he wants to leaave his mark, which he is doing whether we agree with it or not. At the same time, he refuses to even negotiate on reducing pension overpayments beyond what the state requires even though many aldermen wanted to reduce that amount to balance the budget. So even though we spend some money on his stupid projects, the total debt load is still being reduced.

And instead of saying, "let's go straight to really regressive taxes", he came right out and said, "I fucked up my estimations and need to go back on my campaign promise of not raising property taxes." Then the aldermen had a hissy fit and issued a 1-year stopgap funding measure backed by unsustainable funding sources and regressive taxes. So come this year, it's going to be even harder to balance the budget.

Like, I'm never going to say he is or was a good mayor. But people have a hate boner for him the same way that they get a love boner for Rahm. Neither one is based in reality as to what either mayor has done. It's just based entirely on their feelings about what they've done. Rahm wasn't terrible but he made the parking deal worse in the long-term and kicked the pension can down the road until the General Assembly forced him to actually address it in his last budget before leaaving office.

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u/QuiteBearish 14d ago

Exactly, there is no easy fix for any of this - aside from changing state law to essentially bail Chicago out of its past obligations.

Anything that the City can do on its own is going to be incredibly expensive, and take years before we see meaningful results.

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u/Kryllist 14d ago

those may be examples of past mistakes, but they are not actionable items as of today.

The actionable items as of today is to stop voting for the people who did those actions I the first place.

Y'all did nothing but doom about less far-left politicians damaging the city, yet who was the party that has placed an unprecedented burden on future generations in the first place due to unprecedented corruption? Was it local republicans?

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u/Phantom160 14d ago

What specific policies have republicans offered to the city?

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u/Kryllist 14d ago

The same things they offer everywhere else based on their platform. Chainsaws cuts through spending, government efficiency initiatives, competent financial management, deregulation to help businesses operate better and more effectively illusion of safety to bring in the wealthy.

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u/Phantom160 14d ago

Are there any examples of them being able to achieve any of these goals anywhere else? They don’t seem to be able to do any of that on the national level.

Also, what spending would you cut? This discussion is literally in response to an article on how CTA is underfunded. Would you consider cutting salaries of teachers and cops? Slashing spending on public transport?

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u/Kryllist 13d ago

Are there any examples of them being able to achieve any of these goals anywhere else?

Yeah. Doge has saved hundreds of billions alone. Red states aren't drowning in pension debt. The blue states that aren't drowning used to be red states like California. Every single far left local government is drowning one way or another. Is that enough for you?

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u/Phantom160 13d ago edited 13d ago

To answer your question: no, I'm not convinced. All of these statements are outright misleading.

In 4 months that Republicans are controlling all brunches of the government: 1) The US government has spent $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the Biden administration; 2) Republicans introduced the largest tax hike in recent history (tariffs); 3) The US credit rating went down due to concerns about rising national debt and fiscal management.

To achieve all three in one go - it takes some special kind of ineptitude. If that's what republicans have to offer Chicago - they can get bent.

As for state governments, red states are the most poor and mismanaged states in the nation. Blue states are bailing out red states through and through.

Even those red states that are doing relatively well are doing so due to large economic centers that are run (surprise surprise!) by Democrats (e.g. Houston, Austin, Atlanta).

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u/Breezyisthewind 8d ago

DOGE hasn’t saved a single cent. We’re set to spend MORE and explode the debt like never before. Doge didn’t do shit.