Take Your Medicine
Posted on October 28, 2015
It was quite the banner day in Chicago in terms of confiscation and giveaways. First up, “Mayor Rahm Emanuel, aldermen ask taxpayers ‘to take medicine’ to cure ‘municipal illness’“:
After weeks of discussion, debate and flat-out complaining by some, Ald. Patrick O’Connor told his colleagues it finally was time for Chicago to face up to its woeful condition. O’Connor, an alderman since 1983, said decades of financial mismanagement had brought them to the point where approving a budget stacked with $755 million in new taxes and fees was the lone remaining option.
“Nobody wants to be told you’re sick, you need to take medicine. You need chemo. You need an operation. This is an equivalent of a municipal illness,” said O’Connor, 40th. “We don’t have an option of saying, ‘No.’ We have the option of picking our choices to stay alive.”
A breakdown of the new taxes and fees shows:
- $543MM property tax for police and fire pensions
- $45MM property tax hike for school construction
- $62MM in new garbage pickup fees
- $48MM in taxi and ride-share fare and fee hikes
- $40MM in new taxes on streaming services and cloud businesses
- $13MM in more expensive building permit fees
- $2MM to remove vehicle boots
- $1MM in e-cigarette taxes
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, a breakdown of accompanying cuts shows:
- $0
We’re going to speculate that none of the above figures will be anywhere close to the actual returns and that another round of hikes will be needed to make up for the shortfall.
Speaking of shortfall, these same idiots approved the leasing of prime lakefront property (for $10) for a ‘museum’ to display a mediocre-at-best director’s toy collection:
“Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas’ proposed 300,000-square-foot museum to house his trove of art and movie memorabilia on the shore of Lake Michigan cleared its final major city hurdle Wednesday as the Chicago City Council voting to approve zoning for the project.
City approval of the Lucas museum seemed all but ordained, given the strong support Emanuel has thrown behind the concept and the fact aldermen are loath to draw the mayor’s ire by opposing projects he has made a high priority.
This sort of fanboi crap usually works best as a temporary exhibit in LA or Vegas, not in a permanent salt pile/circus tent on the lake.
Yub nub!