...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel...
Mayor Brandon Johnson
...Hizzonner da Mare of Chicago. He was elected in April 2023 to replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot and immediately set about out-Richtering her. A member of the Democratic Party (naturally), Johnson previously worked as a social studies teacher in the city's stellar public schools system. He helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Prior to becoming Da Mare, he served on the Cook County Board of Boodling Commissioners from 2018 to 2023...(D) is using President Donald Trump
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
's tariffs as a convenient excuse to hike taxes on already overburdened residents. Rather than tightening the city's bloated budget or cutting wasteful spending, Johnson is pointing to international trade tensions to justify squeezing more money out of working families and small businesses.
During an interview with WVON on Thursday, Johnson claimed that ''the fluctuations of the market and Trump's tariffs'' have led to significant financial setbacks for the city, ''just because of the uncertainty and the chaos.'' The Democrat mayor also proposed a financial transaction tax and showed interest in a corporate head tax. He claimed these measures would shift the burden onto the people Trump aims to protect.
''[T]hat is something that I do support, a progressive income tax, a financial transaction tax, there's a corporate head tax, there [are] a lot of things that we can do that [place] the burden on the very people that Donald Trump is trying to protect,'' he added.
In addition, he claimed the city's budget problems stem primarily from pension costs, market fluctuations, and Trump's tariffs, which he says have cost the city's fund about a billion dollars due to ''uncertainty and chaos.'' He warned that Chicago would ''have to do more with less,'' blaming Trump's policies for the city's spiraling economic woes, despite having long soaring pension costs, worsening personnel costs, and a massive debt.