Einstein Brandon Haircut has had enough of smokers on the CTA: MORE SOCIAL WORKERS!!!
Posted by osklister
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on July 23, 2025, 11:41:36speaking of chicago
Posted by Ari Gold
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Previous MessageHuh: Tribune doesn't think Einstein Johnson's latest brainstorm is another genius move??
Posted by osklister
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I would pay $100 to watch a 30 minute meeting between Johnson and the
Posted by fratstud
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Meant to highlight "Johnson’s progressive policy proposals may scare businesses away".
Posted by osklister
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Here's the entire Trib editorial, not behind a paywall..
Posted by osklister That leaves a more pernicious proposal pushed by the nonprofit Institute for the Public Good, which has a representative on the mayor’s working group. Based on a tax Seattle approved several years ago, that group has floated an “excise tax” on payrolls for those making $200,000 or more (including stock options and various forms of noncash compensation) — meant to substitute for a corporate income tax that Chicago doesn’t have the legal authority to impose. The organization estimates a 5% payroll tax along those lines would generate $1.5 billion annually. Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, who co-chairs the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, told Crain’s she’d consider such an approach if nonprofits like hospitals and universities were exempted. That still would generate more than $1.1 billion, she said. That proposal isn’t likely to trip up on the AI issue outlined above, but also could be easily evaded by companies moving their operations outside the city and basing their more highly compensated employees in, say, Evanston, Oak Park or any other suburb. Especially given the ease of remote work these days, such moves wouldn’t be difficult. The city already is seeing substantial reductions in its white-collar workforce, statistics show, a trend that surely exacerbates municipal revenue challenges and too much of the time keeps downtown Chicago something close to a dead zone. Any kind of excise payroll tax is a truly terrible idea. Johnson told reporters repeatedly that business people with whom he’s interacted tell him they mainly care about violent crime and that the cost of doing business doesn’t come up. “Not that I know a bunch of millionaires,” he said. “But you know what they talk about when they engage with me? They talk about community safety. They don’t talk about taxes.” This is a mayor with no experience in the private sector, and it shows over and over again. To suggest businesses (or the “ultra-rich,” as the mayor likes to call the wealthier among us) care not a whit about a key cost input like taxes is laughable. If aldermen out of desperation decide to try this gambit, the city will be sued and the matter will be tied up in the courts. At the very least, the 2026 budget hole won’t be plugged this way. True to form, the mayor expounds at length on various and sundry ways to part people and businesses from their money and does little but nod briefly and generally to reducing the cost of government. The budget process hasn’t even started, and Johnson already has ruled out any concessions from unionized city workers like layoffs or furloughs to balance next year’s books. By once again focusing only on economically destructive taxes that we’re guessing won’t get far with skittish aldermen afraid to tie their political futures to a deeply unpopular mayor, Johnson risks a reprise of last year’s eleventh-hour budget crisis. We’re wasting time.
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I read something earlier today that the cash-strapped CTA is trying to merge . . .
Posted by Lexillini The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. Socialism is the gospel of envy.
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yes, the rta (metra, basically, though pace is also included)...
Posted by auto
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Other people's money, plain and simple. I'll spend it: you provide it.
Posted by osklister
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Man, given the CAGR on increase in taxes plus a carry assessed for the CTA
Posted by fratstud
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