Reasonable people may differ, but only thing that made the question not that simple is the obfuscation and inaccuracies put out by the real estate people. As far as I know, the rich are still buying their expensive houses/other properties and paying big commissions and the poor and sad are still sleeping in the streets and alleyways of Chicago.
Yup, the rich are still buying expensive stuff and the poor and sad are still sleeping in the streets and alleyways of Chicago. Higher transfer taxes will likely not change the former. My issue is, without a concrete plan, they likely won't change the latter either.
Don’t you think that plans to house the homeless will cost money? And since the way governments raise money is through taxes, don’t you think that some form of tax increase will be necessary to implement those plans? And, I guess, finally, don’t you think we have an obligation as a society to house the homeless?
From page 45 of the 2024 city budget document - " 124 TIF districts throughout the City, is used primarily to fund infrastructure, affordable housing, and economic development activities to revitalize once blighted parts of the City". The budget declared $434 million of TIF funds as 'surplus', meaning they didn't have anything to spend it on and it could be transferred to other uses in the budget. This is in addition to the $44 million in covid homeless funds that the city has not spent, and the roughly $200 million currently spread over city homeless/housing programs. Of the estimated 6000 homeless in Chicago, roughly 1000 have no shelter nightly. Is it too much to ask the city to explain this before asking for more?
Homelessness is a problem. The humanist in me says we should do all we can to help our fellow humans find, among other things, adequate, permanent shelter. The economist in me posits that it is less expensive to help folks with shelter than it is to allow them to languish in homelessness. Either way, I am persuaded that we, as a society, have a responsibility to solve the homelessness problem. The pragmatist in me says solving this problem requires a plan. When I tried to discern how the money from the Bring Chicago Home initiative would be deployed, I found no detail. What I did find on the City of Chicago website was Chicago's Plan to End Homelessness 2.0 announced by then Mayor Rahm Emmanuel in August 2012. I was disappointed to see the last Plan 2.0 Progress Report showing up on the City's web site was completed in April 2017. Granted, a little more digging led me to the point-in-time reports and the 2023 DFSS Annual Homeless Report. Whatever happened to Plan 2.0? Mayor Johnson said he planned to form a committee for the deployment of the transfer tax funds. How would that be different from the City’s Interagency Task Force to Reduce Homelessness, launched in 2016?
The dizzying number of foundations, coalitions and City programs aimed at homelessness in Chicago made it impossible for me to figure out (a) how much is currently being spent (privately or publicly) (b) what real progress has been made over the last, say, 12 years (since Plan 2.0), and (c) what specific new ideas does Mayor Johnson's administration have that will move the dial, and by how much?
It looks to me like a lot of redundancy (waste) so, absent a real, transparent plan for ALL homeless funding, I am not inclined to support more taxes.
oh, please - what you're saying is that the poor and workng class people - mostly black and hispanic - who voted against the referendum are too stupid to see thru the [your] alleged 'obfuscations' by the 'real estate lobby'.
do you feel the same about pritzker's 'fair tax' plan? again, were the working class/low income voters too stupid, too gullible to see thru the 'inaccuracies' promoted by the opponents? no, they understood that taxing the rich would nowhere near fill the void created by IL politicians' overspending; and that the future of the so-called fair tax would be tax increases for the middle and working classes.
no, what is and was stupid are the economics underlying the presumption that politicians can tax the 'rich', increase tax revenue, and spend taxpayers' hard-earned $ - for what? no specificity from the politicians on how 'Bring Chgo Home' revenues would be spent.
Chicago's and Illinois' problems funding social services are not due to a shortage of revenue.
If you take a look at Trubisky and Fields' stats, you'll see that the reason Fields is gone is because he is essentially Mitch. The stats lay out the same. While Trubisky would bounce up and down in the pocket, Fields just took off and ran. They did this because they couldn't get beyond their first read and that doesn't cut it in the NFL.
When I first paid attention to Johnson during the primaries, I felt that he was a smart, articulate politician with good ideas. I soon began to believe that despite these positives, he could easily become a stubborn and remarkably poor politician. Chicago knows one when we see one. He forgot to read the Pelosi handbook that reads “you don’t bring it up for voting without the votes”. Worse yet for him , his obtuse defiance has confirmed that he will certainly be a one term mayor.
I hate to say I told you so, but I said this before the election. Furthermore his reply was an insult. No one said the rich aren't concerned about homelessness. But it's necessary to see the whole forest. Weren't a lot of city residents concerned about high taxes and fees long before anyone came up with this idea? Now we have two sports franchises asking for money when their two present stadiums have yet to be paid for? By the way, what's the recall rule in Chicago? This man has been a disaster from Day One. How many more years do Chicagoans want? Eric was right about one thing. Even had voters supported the measure, trusting Johnson to spend the money is another matter. Let me see, the people that opposed it support Trump? The measure lost by a large margin. Just how many Trump supporters does Johnson think live in Chicago?
I proudly voted against that stupid Johnson referendum!
Why? Because I flat out know that the money was never going to go to help the homeless, but was going to mysteriously get transferred to give that huge pay raise to his rotten buddies at that insane teacher union!
Plus there's no doubt, it would cause huge rent increases for people in apartment buildings, when the buildings get sold & must then pay higher taxes. And I own a house & supposedly my tax would've gone down & I don't believe that for a second!
As for renaming Columbus Drive for Obama: Nothing owned by government should ever be named after a living person, ever!!! It should be a law that they must wait until a person has been dead for at least 10 years.
If our otherwise useless city council, which always wastes the first hour of every council meeting giving out congratulatory resolutions for everything & everyone, from the local girl scout troop selling the most cookies to some kid scoring 1590 on his SAT, wants to rename a street, then get rid of Balbo Drive, named after a buddy, buddy of Mussolini, who flew three seaplanes to Chicago in 1933 for the World's Fair & rename it after a noble Italian who left Italy in the 1930s & came to America, to protect his Jewish wife from the Nazis, despite Mussolini's assurance she would be safe.
Who am I speaking of, Enrico Fermi of course, the brilliant physicist who came to the University of Chicago & who led the team that built the world's first atomic reactor on the campus & created the first controlled nuclear reaction on December 2, 1942.
While there's FermiLab way out in the western end of DuPage County, there's nothing in Chicago named after him, other than a part of the physics department at the University of Chicago on Ellis Avenue, near the Henry Moore statue commemorating the location of Pile #1.
Agree with you on naming streets, public buildings after living people. Examples: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum - named for the living spouse of Richard Notebaert, former CEO of Qwest (the telecom) - a pure vanity exercise exchanged for a huge donation. Don Shula Expressway in Miami - naming a freeway after a professional football coach - back in 1983, when he was not only alive, but still coaching for the Dolphins? Really? Presidential Libraries are different. "Obama Drive" can wait until after he's passed.
Re: Michael Moore's characterization of Trump as a genius, I think a more accurate term would be a savant - he is obviously mentally unwell, a troubled insecure man who has failed at almost everything, but he has a single tremendous, rare talent - tapping into base instincts of a large portion of the US population by using outrageous rhetoric. This one talent, coupled with flaws in our system of government, has allowed him to amass enormous political power, not because he is a genius political or business strategist but only because his twisted selfish instincts happen to perfectly fit in and hack the puzzle of our society.
What T**** has is not real intelligence, it's con man smarts. He has the weird ability to suss out what a certain group of disaffected people want & tell them what they want to hear. The truly strange thing is he never gives them any breaks on their taxes, that goes to billionaires, but the boobuosie who support him, never seem to care about that. As long as he hates who they hate, they don't give a damn about anything else.
He's without a doubt, the greatest con man in history, he makes Ponzi & Madoff look like small time stick up men!
Court authorities who botched the Perkins case should all be fired. How can you not interview the woman who experienced the danger? We all know orders of protection frequently are not worth the paper they're printed on, but they wouldn't even go that far. It's infuriating and heartbreaking. And I'm glad you talked about Jayden. I found myself wondering if he ever could have been cast as Billy Elliott.
Next: learned a new word today from this sentence: [[If “punching back” involves doubling down on the obloquy during an attempt in November to once again put this question to voters — a possibility he didn’t commit to Wednesday — Johnson will end up with his back on the canvas again.'' (Sorry -- I can't highlight "obloquy.")
And I wouldn't trust any government anywhere with $100 million and no concrete plan.
Don't name a street for someone until after they're dead a number of years.
And finally, I am flummoxed by your method of rooting for teams that ends in "teams from blue states." I completely understand Big 10 first, because I know a lot of people, myself included, who do that. (I put Marquette, my middle daughter's alma mater, ahead of any Big 10 teams that's not Northwestern, though. Then I root for teams that have alums I know -- which means after decades of rooting AGAINST Notre Dame, I know cheer for those Irish (son-in-law). After eight years of working for an association that represents a surgical subspecialty I'll root for schools associated with members with whom I interacted a great deal (Roll Tide!) Everyone knows people who dislike teams (Duke, for good example) for extraneous reasons and hope they fail. But I'm pretty sure I've never heard of someone rooting for colleges/universities based on the politics of the state in which they're located. Go for Baylor or Alabama instead!!
1. This newsletter's readers really hate the Chicago Teacher's Union. The rants are getting old. Which leads me to
2. While I did vote, I can understand low turn out. The constant thrum of political campaigning and political punditry combined with the continual background noise of Donald Trump is wearying for anyone who tries to be a good citizen and keep up with the news. For me, it is this, not divisiveness, which has always been there, that is new. I'm tired. I may have to turn off the spigot.
I think turnout was low at least partially because of lack of contests. I had one -- ONE -- category with a choice. That's it. Everything else was already settled. I had to force myself to go vote for that one contest. (I live in the western suburbs; if I lived in Chicago I would have been eager to vote Bring Chicago Home down.)
We hate the CTU because it's run by lunatics, who don't care about the students, only their pay & pensions.
Remember, while they're supposed to pay an equal amount as the Board of Ed does into the pension plan, the incompetent Board of Ed rolls over for them every contract & the Board pays 16% of their pay into the fund, while the individual teachers pay just 2% of their pay into the fund! In reality, each side should be paying 9% of their pay into the pension fund!
You are wrong about the CTU. If only they cared about their pay and their pensions we would be a much stronger city as that is the purpose of a union. Instead they want to run the whole city according to their Socialist Democratic platform and anyone who does not agree with them is labeled a racist or a Trump supporter. (not sure which accusation is worse! )
I'm really getting upset with this carousel of GM/Coach/QB that the Bears go through. When you interview to be a GM or Head Coach, you probably know what you are working with. It would be refreshing if they just come right out and say I'll only take the job if I can put my people in.
I agree completely with EZ assessment of the tragic murder of Jayden Perkins. There is every reason to believe that the government entities involved are routinely making decisions that advantage miscreants over their potential victims. This includes telling the public that electronic monitoring is an acceptable alternative to incarceration, when they know from experience that it doesn't work. It probably could be made to work, but that would take someone that cares and feels responsible.
I also agree with EZ on his assessment of the Bring Chicago Home results and the mayor's response. As to the mayor's remark about 'Trump supporters' we should recall that that was one of his characterizations of Vallas and Vallas supporters. He probably feels that plays well with his base and snows liberal Chicagoans.
The city contributed park land to the Obama Center and hasn't finished paying for the infrastructure improvements around it. Do we really need to name a street for him too? I also thought this was a thinly veiled sop to the progressives that dislike Columbus. Surely there are more important things for the council to do.
So I love everything about Tweet Madness 2024 except the way it’s conducted. I hate having to choose (on the one hand) between two really good tweets and then (on the other hand) between two meh choices. I’d rather have voted for both the good ones and against the two mehs. Next year, how about letting us pick our 16 faves from the 32, our 8 faves from the surviving 16, etc. Surely a surer way of assuring that the best tweet wins.
Real estate interests. 1. Chicago homeless, 0.
It's not that simple.
Reasonable people may differ, but only thing that made the question not that simple is the obfuscation and inaccuracies put out by the real estate people. As far as I know, the rich are still buying their expensive houses/other properties and paying big commissions and the poor and sad are still sleeping in the streets and alleyways of Chicago.
Yup, the rich are still buying expensive stuff and the poor and sad are still sleeping in the streets and alleyways of Chicago. Higher transfer taxes will likely not change the former. My issue is, without a concrete plan, they likely won't change the latter either.
Don’t you think that plans to house the homeless will cost money? And since the way governments raise money is through taxes, don’t you think that some form of tax increase will be necessary to implement those plans? And, I guess, finally, don’t you think we have an obligation as a society to house the homeless?
From page 45 of the 2024 city budget document - " 124 TIF districts throughout the City, is used primarily to fund infrastructure, affordable housing, and economic development activities to revitalize once blighted parts of the City". The budget declared $434 million of TIF funds as 'surplus', meaning they didn't have anything to spend it on and it could be transferred to other uses in the budget. This is in addition to the $44 million in covid homeless funds that the city has not spent, and the roughly $200 million currently spread over city homeless/housing programs. Of the estimated 6000 homeless in Chicago, roughly 1000 have no shelter nightly. Is it too much to ask the city to explain this before asking for more?
https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/committeeonthebudget/2024/FY2024/2024-Budget-Overview.pdf
Page 46…
Joanie -
Homelessness is a problem. The humanist in me says we should do all we can to help our fellow humans find, among other things, adequate, permanent shelter. The economist in me posits that it is less expensive to help folks with shelter than it is to allow them to languish in homelessness. Either way, I am persuaded that we, as a society, have a responsibility to solve the homelessness problem. The pragmatist in me says solving this problem requires a plan. When I tried to discern how the money from the Bring Chicago Home initiative would be deployed, I found no detail. What I did find on the City of Chicago website was Chicago's Plan to End Homelessness 2.0 announced by then Mayor Rahm Emmanuel in August 2012. I was disappointed to see the last Plan 2.0 Progress Report showing up on the City's web site was completed in April 2017. Granted, a little more digging led me to the point-in-time reports and the 2023 DFSS Annual Homeless Report. Whatever happened to Plan 2.0? Mayor Johnson said he planned to form a committee for the deployment of the transfer tax funds. How would that be different from the City’s Interagency Task Force to Reduce Homelessness, launched in 2016?
The dizzying number of foundations, coalitions and City programs aimed at homelessness in Chicago made it impossible for me to figure out (a) how much is currently being spent (privately or publicly) (b) what real progress has been made over the last, say, 12 years (since Plan 2.0), and (c) what specific new ideas does Mayor Johnson's administration have that will move the dial, and by how much?
It looks to me like a lot of redundancy (waste) so, absent a real, transparent plan for ALL homeless funding, I am not inclined to support more taxes.
oh, please - what you're saying is that the poor and workng class people - mostly black and hispanic - who voted against the referendum are too stupid to see thru the [your] alleged 'obfuscations' by the 'real estate lobby'.
do you feel the same about pritzker's 'fair tax' plan? again, were the working class/low income voters too stupid, too gullible to see thru the 'inaccuracies' promoted by the opponents? no, they understood that taxing the rich would nowhere near fill the void created by IL politicians' overspending; and that the future of the so-called fair tax would be tax increases for the middle and working classes.
no, what is and was stupid are the economics underlying the presumption that politicians can tax the 'rich', increase tax revenue, and spend taxpayers' hard-earned $ - for what? no specificity from the politicians on how 'Bring Chgo Home' revenues would be spent.
Chicago's and Illinois' problems funding social services are not due to a shortage of revenue.
First time I had to go to the tissue box reading the PS. God bless Jayden.
If you take a look at Trubisky and Fields' stats, you'll see that the reason Fields is gone is because he is essentially Mitch. The stats lay out the same. While Trubisky would bounce up and down in the pocket, Fields just took off and ran. They did this because they couldn't get beyond their first read and that doesn't cut it in the NFL.
When I first paid attention to Johnson during the primaries, I felt that he was a smart, articulate politician with good ideas. I soon began to believe that despite these positives, he could easily become a stubborn and remarkably poor politician. Chicago knows one when we see one. He forgot to read the Pelosi handbook that reads “you don’t bring it up for voting without the votes”. Worse yet for him , his obtuse defiance has confirmed that he will certainly be a one term mayor.
I hate to say I told you so, but I said this before the election. Furthermore his reply was an insult. No one said the rich aren't concerned about homelessness. But it's necessary to see the whole forest. Weren't a lot of city residents concerned about high taxes and fees long before anyone came up with this idea? Now we have two sports franchises asking for money when their two present stadiums have yet to be paid for? By the way, what's the recall rule in Chicago? This man has been a disaster from Day One. How many more years do Chicagoans want? Eric was right about one thing. Even had voters supported the measure, trusting Johnson to spend the money is another matter. Let me see, the people that opposed it support Trump? The measure lost by a large margin. Just how many Trump supporters does Johnson think live in Chicago?
Unfortunately, there isn't a recall rule in Chicago.
Enjoyed the Frank Turner song / video, and see that he'll be at the Aragon Ballroom May 31st.
He is a hell of a live performer. I'll be there. There will be mosh pits.
I proudly voted against that stupid Johnson referendum!
Why? Because I flat out know that the money was never going to go to help the homeless, but was going to mysteriously get transferred to give that huge pay raise to his rotten buddies at that insane teacher union!
Plus there's no doubt, it would cause huge rent increases for people in apartment buildings, when the buildings get sold & must then pay higher taxes. And I own a house & supposedly my tax would've gone down & I don't believe that for a second!
As for renaming Columbus Drive for Obama: Nothing owned by government should ever be named after a living person, ever!!! It should be a law that they must wait until a person has been dead for at least 10 years.
If our otherwise useless city council, which always wastes the first hour of every council meeting giving out congratulatory resolutions for everything & everyone, from the local girl scout troop selling the most cookies to some kid scoring 1590 on his SAT, wants to rename a street, then get rid of Balbo Drive, named after a buddy, buddy of Mussolini, who flew three seaplanes to Chicago in 1933 for the World's Fair & rename it after a noble Italian who left Italy in the 1930s & came to America, to protect his Jewish wife from the Nazis, despite Mussolini's assurance she would be safe.
Who am I speaking of, Enrico Fermi of course, the brilliant physicist who came to the University of Chicago & who led the team that built the world's first atomic reactor on the campus & created the first controlled nuclear reaction on December 2, 1942.
While there's FermiLab way out in the western end of DuPage County, there's nothing in Chicago named after him, other than a part of the physics department at the University of Chicago on Ellis Avenue, near the Henry Moore statue commemorating the location of Pile #1.
Hear hear on Fermi Drive! Just wish it was a bigger street.
Agree with you on naming streets, public buildings after living people. Examples: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum - named for the living spouse of Richard Notebaert, former CEO of Qwest (the telecom) - a pure vanity exercise exchanged for a huge donation. Don Shula Expressway in Miami - naming a freeway after a professional football coach - back in 1983, when he was not only alive, but still coaching for the Dolphins? Really? Presidential Libraries are different. "Obama Drive" can wait until after he's passed.
Re: Michael Moore's characterization of Trump as a genius, I think a more accurate term would be a savant - he is obviously mentally unwell, a troubled insecure man who has failed at almost everything, but he has a single tremendous, rare talent - tapping into base instincts of a large portion of the US population by using outrageous rhetoric. This one talent, coupled with flaws in our system of government, has allowed him to amass enormous political power, not because he is a genius political or business strategist but only because his twisted selfish instincts happen to perfectly fit in and hack the puzzle of our society.
What T**** has is not real intelligence, it's con man smarts. He has the weird ability to suss out what a certain group of disaffected people want & tell them what they want to hear. The truly strange thing is he never gives them any breaks on their taxes, that goes to billionaires, but the boobuosie who support him, never seem to care about that. As long as he hates who they hate, they don't give a damn about anything else.
He's without a doubt, the greatest con man in history, he makes Ponzi & Madoff look like small time stick up men!
So many thoughts today!
Court authorities who botched the Perkins case should all be fired. How can you not interview the woman who experienced the danger? We all know orders of protection frequently are not worth the paper they're printed on, but they wouldn't even go that far. It's infuriating and heartbreaking. And I'm glad you talked about Jayden. I found myself wondering if he ever could have been cast as Billy Elliott.
Next: learned a new word today from this sentence: [[If “punching back” involves doubling down on the obloquy during an attempt in November to once again put this question to voters — a possibility he didn’t commit to Wednesday — Johnson will end up with his back on the canvas again.'' (Sorry -- I can't highlight "obloquy.")
And I wouldn't trust any government anywhere with $100 million and no concrete plan.
Don't name a street for someone until after they're dead a number of years.
And finally, I am flummoxed by your method of rooting for teams that ends in "teams from blue states." I completely understand Big 10 first, because I know a lot of people, myself included, who do that. (I put Marquette, my middle daughter's alma mater, ahead of any Big 10 teams that's not Northwestern, though. Then I root for teams that have alums I know -- which means after decades of rooting AGAINST Notre Dame, I know cheer for those Irish (son-in-law). After eight years of working for an association that represents a surgical subspecialty I'll root for schools associated with members with whom I interacted a great deal (Roll Tide!) Everyone knows people who dislike teams (Duke, for good example) for extraneous reasons and hope they fail. But I'm pretty sure I've never heard of someone rooting for colleges/universities based on the politics of the state in which they're located. Go for Baylor or Alabama instead!!
1. This newsletter's readers really hate the Chicago Teacher's Union. The rants are getting old. Which leads me to
2. While I did vote, I can understand low turn out. The constant thrum of political campaigning and political punditry combined with the continual background noise of Donald Trump is wearying for anyone who tries to be a good citizen and keep up with the news. For me, it is this, not divisiveness, which has always been there, that is new. I'm tired. I may have to turn off the spigot.
I think turnout was low at least partially because of lack of contests. I had one -- ONE -- category with a choice. That's it. Everything else was already settled. I had to force myself to go vote for that one contest. (I live in the western suburbs; if I lived in Chicago I would have been eager to vote Bring Chicago Home down.)
We hate the CTU because it's run by lunatics, who don't care about the students, only their pay & pensions.
Remember, while they're supposed to pay an equal amount as the Board of Ed does into the pension plan, the incompetent Board of Ed rolls over for them every contract & the Board pays 16% of their pay into the fund, while the individual teachers pay just 2% of their pay into the fund! In reality, each side should be paying 9% of their pay into the pension fund!
You are wrong about the CTU. If only they cared about their pay and their pensions we would be a much stronger city as that is the purpose of a union. Instead they want to run the whole city according to their Socialist Democratic platform and anyone who does not agree with them is labeled a racist or a Trump supporter. (not sure which accusation is worse! )
I'm really getting upset with this carousel of GM/Coach/QB that the Bears go through. When you interview to be a GM or Head Coach, you probably know what you are working with. It would be refreshing if they just come right out and say I'll only take the job if I can put my people in.
I agree completely with EZ assessment of the tragic murder of Jayden Perkins. There is every reason to believe that the government entities involved are routinely making decisions that advantage miscreants over their potential victims. This includes telling the public that electronic monitoring is an acceptable alternative to incarceration, when they know from experience that it doesn't work. It probably could be made to work, but that would take someone that cares and feels responsible.
I also agree with EZ on his assessment of the Bring Chicago Home results and the mayor's response. As to the mayor's remark about 'Trump supporters' we should recall that that was one of his characterizations of Vallas and Vallas supporters. He probably feels that plays well with his base and snows liberal Chicagoans.
Eric, I take issue with you when I disagree with your views. So in fairness, when you put out a really good issue, I need to acknowledge that.
Nice job today from top to bottom!
No ez picks in the tweet competition...well done sir!!
The city contributed park land to the Obama Center and hasn't finished paying for the infrastructure improvements around it. Do we really need to name a street for him too? I also thought this was a thinly veiled sop to the progressives that dislike Columbus. Surely there are more important things for the council to do.
So I love everything about Tweet Madness 2024 except the way it’s conducted. I hate having to choose (on the one hand) between two really good tweets and then (on the other hand) between two meh choices. I’d rather have voted for both the good ones and against the two mehs. Next year, how about letting us pick our 16 faves from the 32, our 8 faves from the surviving 16, etc. Surely a surer way of assuring that the best tweet wins.
great suggestion - right on!