-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
How might you reinforce the worst stereotypes of both parties – greedy Republicans handing a pointless tax break to the rich, and reality-challenged Democrats wasting money on a well-intentioned program for the poor likely to fail and perhaps backfire?
Washington managed to find a way – with bipartisan support.
The new chairman’s bio reads like a parody of Chicago politics for the 35 years he has been an alderman.
A city spokeswoman said Emanuel directed the Department of Law to help define the scope of the audit and select an outside firm to conduct it. The administration will work to release an interim report on the program within 60 days of selecting the outside firm.
The increasingly left-wing politics of leading U.S. cities clashes with the aspirations of middle-class residents.The ranks of the country’s most bifurcated cities include such celebrated urban areas as San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles,
“Ald. Burke’s indictment has started to unravel an undeniable truth about Preckwinkle: She ain’t who says she is.”
See our Quicktake linked here on this article and Rahm’s outrageous choice for Burke’s successor.
More than half of Illinois’ worst-performing schools are nowhere near the concrete jungles of Chicago that most people associate with low test scores and high dropout rates.
Springfield is facing mounting pressure to enact a massive state gas tax hike. One proposal would make the average motorist pay as much as $200 per year in additional taxes on gas.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/ed-burke-political-supporters-sent-cash-after-federal-raid-503850041.html
Railway commuters traveling between St. Louis and Chicago have yet to see faster rail journeys, despite most of the Amtrak corridor’s $1.95 billon upgrade concluding a year ago.
Only one of every six Federal employees actually works in Washington, leaving the rest spread across the U.S., including some 29,000 who work in the Chicago region. Among them are about 900 administrators, attorneys, scientists and engineers at the EPA’s Chicago regional office.
“America’s “flyover country” is stronger than you think.”
Comment: Keep in mind, however, that it’s the combined state and local tax burden that counts. By that measure, Illinois is between worst or seventh worst, depending on how you measure it.
“New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut topped a list of states that saw more residents moving out than arriving from other states in 2018, continuing a trend of people leaving the Northeast and the Midwest for growing cities in the Mountain West and South …”
Coincidentally, or not, New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut are also the three lowest-ranking states in the nation based on Truth in Accounting’s “Taxpayer Burden” measure of state governments’ financial condition.
Comment: So, now the leader of the media’s “sky isn’t falling” crowd who has ridiculed for years us who think differently will enlighten us with his solutions: A token nod to government consolidation, cutbacks in property tax exemptions (which would have a trivial revenue effect) and redistributing property tax burdens, leaving, as you’d expect, one that’s significant — higher state taxes. How? How much? What would that fix? No answers on that, of course.
“A lot of folks don’t want to play that game or feel they can’t afford to play that game. We’re losing out on growth and innovation in Chicago.”
It’s all so lucrative and simple, capitalism squeezed through that City Hall cheesecloth.
Now just multiply that thousands upon thousands of times, year after year, business upon business, large and small, from factories to little mom-and-pop hot dog joints, decade after decade, from the days of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink Kenna through the years of the Daleys and beyond.
All the businesses that have failed and fled to other states can tell you about the Chicago Way. All the jobs gone tell the story.
When Burger King was slow to respond to his bid for their business, Burke and one of his ward employees discussed increasing the pressure by withholding the permits needed for the remodel.
“All right, I’ll play as hard ball as I can,” the complaint quotes the ward employee.
“OK,” Burke replies.
“Seemingly”?
Presented without comment.
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