Mayor Emanuel suddenly cares about Chicago’s “streets, schools and finances?” Here’s his record. – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Rahm Emanuel, in a possible ramp up for a run at round two as Chicago’s mayor, is attempting to rewrite the history of his first round. 

Emanuel was on Real Time with Bill Maher recently, commenting on the unpopularity of current Mayor Brandon Johnson and the inability of Democrats to properly govern the nation’s big cities. He said Democrats are obsessed with the wrong issues, warning, “I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room…or bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom.”

More importantly, he called for “safe streets, strong schools, and stable finances” and claimed that that was his focus during his tenure as Chicago’s mayor. Not true. The record shows these are areas where Emanuel failed miserably. 

Yes, Emanuel inherited a city in bad shape, but he ended up making Chicagoans’ situation even worse.

We covered Mayor Emanuel extensively during his time in office. He showed initial promise when he tried to push for 401k retirement plans for city workers and when he first took on the teachers unions. Unfortunately, Emanuel rapidly descended into failure after he abandoned his Rahmbo persona. 

The Chicago Teachers Union ended up rolling over him during two subsequent contract negotiations. Homicides spiked in 2016. The city’s pension crisis worsened. Credit downgrades and record property tax hikes followed. 

Mayor Emanuel lost control, leaving incoming mayor Lori Lightfoot a junk credit rating, the nation’s most murders, and a school system controlled by a militant Chicago Teachers Union. 

So no, he can’t claim to have achieved “safe streets, strong schools, and stable finances.” 

Here’s his actual record.

Safe streets? Emanuel’s Chicago led the country in total murders every year from 2012 to 2019. Chicago, under Emanuel’s leadership, suffered the nation’s most homicides of any big city in the country every year but his first year in office.

Before 2012, New York was more often than not the nation’s homicide capital. But by 2011, NYC’s policing reforms had at long last managed to reduce murders below even that of Chicago, hitting just 419 murders in 2012. From then on, New York managed continued improvement while Emanuel’s Chicago remained awash in bloodshed.

And it wasn’t just the city’s homicides Emanuel failed to manage. His mishandling of the Laquan McDonald scandal – namely, his office’s delay in releasing the video showing the shooting death of McDonald by city police – prematurely ended his campaign for a third term as mayor.

Strong schools? Emanuel boosted graduation to record levels, but only a quarter of CPS kids were proficient in reading, math. Emanuel bragged to Maher about producing “the best graduation growth in the country” during his tenure. Yes, his administration boosted graduation rates from 70% to 82%. But just because students received diplomas doesn’t mean they were learning.

Only 20% of 8th-grade students were proficient in reading and math on NAEP tests when Mayor Emanuel took office 2011. When he left in 2019 it was only a quarter of students – hardly an increase worthy of praise.

Stable finances? Emanuel oversaw Chicago’s fall to a junk credit rating

Record tax hikes, worsening pensions and a junk rating occurred under Emanuel’s watch.

Chicagoans were hit with a record $588 million property tax hike starting in 2016. Additional hikes, including garbage collection fees, ride-sharing and taxi fees, an e-cigarette tax and more pushed the total burden on residents to more than $750 million a year.

Despite a vast majority of that money being directed towards the city’s pension funds, Chicago’s pension crisis only got worse.

In 2011, Chicago’s five major pension funds collectively were about 50% funded and the city’s total official pension debt added up to $23 billion.

By 2019, the funded ratio had collapsed to just 32% and Chicagoans were on the hook for more than $43 billion in pension debts. Today, it’s $53 billion.

The city’s failure to get its pension crisis under control ultimately led to a large number of downgrades by the nation’s big credit rating firms.

Moody’s Investors Service even went so far as to push the city all the way down into “junk” status – a record only one other major city, Detroit, shared at the time.

Rahm Emanuel can try to whitewash his time as Chicago’s mayor, but the city’s residents are still feeling the impact of his poor stewardship today.

One thing’s for sure. No Chicago mayor in recent history has ever actually delivered “safe streets, strong schools, and stable finances.” And until Chicagoans elect a mayor who will do so, the city will continue its decline.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• One big example of why Illinois badly needs a DOGE of its own
• While S&P downgrades Chicago, Mayor Johnson and city officials deny failures
• Adults murdering kids. Kids murdering kids. “Random” bullets killing kids. Nearly 100 dead youth in Chicago in 2024
• A bit of Chicago truth-telling: Actuaries warn of insolvency, businesses fear crime
• Chicago property taxes rise 3.5 times faster than inflation in last decade
• Chicago’s black hole: Pension debts jump even though taxpayers pour billions into city funds