By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Tax the rich. That’s the extent of CTU’s ideas to fund a host of new costs the union is demanding from Chicago.
The CTU recently revealed their standard contract demands for more pay, smaller class sizes, more support services and additional staffing. This time, however, they’ve gone even further, calling on CPS to provide affordable housing for teachers and guaranteed sanctuary status for undocumented students in classrooms.
“Where will the money come from? Rich people,” said CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates.
But their revenue ideas don’t match their rhetoric. Yes, the CTU wants a chunk of any future statewide progressive tax, but they want more than that.
“We have a governor who has committed to legalizing recreational marijuana and putting a tax on it, we can take that as well,” Davis Gates said. “They are also talking about sports betting. We can take that. They’re talking about opening a new casino here in the city of Chicago. We can take that.”
Leave aside the fact that the union is talking about “taking” some off the top of Pritzker’s new state revenue ideas – something he won’t be crazy about considering he’ll need every dime to pay for his own multi-billion spending promises.
But think about those sin taxes for a second. Sports betting, marijuana and gambling – just who does the CTU think will be paying the vast majority of those taxes?
The rich? Hardly. Sin taxes are regressive – meaning it’ll be Chicago’s poor and working classes that will bear most of the burden.
That’s not to say that other tax hike ideas the union has trotted out – like city income, commuter and LaSalle Street taxes – are any better. Chicagoans have already been subjected to multiple tax hikes, fees and penalties over the last few years to pay for the city’s bloated costs, corruption and mismanagement. They’re now on the hook for over $140,000 in combined state-local retirement debt per household.
The CTU better watch out about just how much more in benefits it demands. CPS is already five-notches deep into junk territory. The district is losing thousands of students each year – 75,000 students in total since 2000. And it’s got too many empty schools with dismal performances. Not to mention the $25 billion pension hole Moody’s says the district is in.
Much of the above is the result of the CTU’s past unaffordable demands – all paid for by regular Chicagoans through ever-higher property taxes and fees.
That seems to be the union’s modus operandi: call for taxing the rich, but end up burdening the poor. And bringing the school district – even the city itself – closer to the edge.
Read more about Chicago Public Schools:
- Chicago Public Schools enrollment tanks, but state money keeps flowing
- Chicago leaders’ hypocritical stance on school choice
- A more likely reason Rahm Emanuel dropped out: the Chicago time bomb
- Illinois taxpayers bailed out Chicago Public Schools so the district could do what?
Ted was on The Chicago Way with John Kass and Jeff Carlin to discuss the proposed $5 billion lakefront stadium project proposed by the Chicago Bears & Mayor Brandon Johnson, why Chicago is struggling compared to other metro areas across the country, why the city might or might not go the way of Detroit, and more.
Some Illinois lawmakers continue to deny that covid aid and other federal stimulus bailed the state out of its fiscal mess. But a look at past and projected revenues from COGFA shows just how much the bailouts blew out the state’s revenues. And now that they’re over, how much harder it will be for Illinois revenues to grow.
Election integrity – both real and perceived – is essential to government’s legitimacy and stability. Illinois, like the rest of the nation, better fix its problems now.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Chicago’s latest bond offering, why Chicago’s dismal home value growth is due to poor policies, the next $70 million to be spent on migrants, the 9% salary hikes demanded by the CTU, and why Illinois lawmakers voting to stop Chicago’s selective enrollment schools from being closed is hypocritical.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/21/2024.
There are not enough words in the dictionary to express my disgust with these union leaders.
And a majority of those Union Teachers, enroll their own children in private schools.
Astoundingly the average Chicagoan has know idea that yearly per student funding is +$17,000 per student per year (with only a minimal payment to benefits). why is the press such abetters in deception?
These lazy greed-crazed incompetent union scum are The Rich
Taxing the poor sounds like a great idea…after all they are many of the ones that always vote for more spending
Tax the rich.
Feed the poor.
Until there are no
Rich no more.