Washington Post Editorial Board Slams Mayor Johnson’s Budget Plan: ‘Chicago Has Lost its Mind’
“By making it more expensive to do business or hire workers in the city, these measures threaten Chicago’s future economic growth and tax collections.”
If you follow politics and media long enough, you develop a sense to notice when something is out of the ordinary. When a liberal outlet like the Washington Post goes after a hard left Democrat, for instance, it’s usually safe to assume that there is a serious issue at hand.
In this case, it looks like the the Post is deeply concerned about unfunded liabilities in Chicago, specifically pension programs.
Mayor Johnson is proposing tax increases to handle this and the editors of the Washington Post are noting that his ideas are unserious and potentially harmful to the city in the long term:
Chicago has lost its mind
Chicago has long-term structural problems with its finances, thanks in large part to wildly underfunded pensions. The country’s third-largest city has a history of using short-term gimmicks to paper over its problems, such as a notorious 2008 deal that sold off 75 years of future parking meter revenue for $1.15 billion, which was quickly spent. That deal is still hurting finances today, which should have taught local politicians that there is no substitute for serious fiscal reform. Alas, apparently not.
The city’s net operating budget increased almost 40 percent between 2019 and 2025, “subsidized in large part by temporary federal pandemic funding that kept the City financially afloat,” according to Grant McClintock of the Civic Federation. “The pandemic is over, but many of the programs and personnel positions established during that time remain, and without the benefit of the federal funding that previously supported them.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) proposes to offset a $1.15 billion shortfall by taxing the businesses that anchor Chicago’s economy, borrowing and more gimmicks.
The mayor proposes to increase the tax on the lease of “personal property” like computers, vehicles and software from 11 percent to 14 percent, and to bring back the city’s “head tax,” which would result in large employers paying $33 per worker, per month.
By making it more expensive to do business or hire workers in the city, these measures threaten Chicago’s future economic growth and tax collections. These moves are especially reckless given that the Chicago Fed’s 12-month hiring outlook is the weakest it’s been since the pandemic. Gov. JB Pritzker (D) says the head tax would penalize employment.
Other gimmicks include a temporary hiring freeze that will do nothing to address the long-term mismatch between spending and revenue, diverting surplus funds earmarked for economic development of blighted areas into the general fund and the school system (once again sacrificing future growth to fund today’s expenditures), and slashing additional payments the city has been making to shore up the city’s underfunded pensions.
Mayor Johnson was asked to respond to this yesterday and claimed that they are wrong, naturally:
WATCH: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responds to a Washington Post editorial today that criticized his head tax proposal.
“Their information is wrong. But it wouldn’t be the first time a publication got something that I’ve done wrong.” https://t.co/3mYKqd4FuU pic.twitter.com/gxOTusSK3w
— Austin Berg (@Austin__Berg) December 15, 2025
In this clip, Johnson spars with a reporter about support for his plans, or lack thereof, from the business community. Johnson claims his plan has broad support from the people of Chicago and insists that corporations must pay their fair share:
WATCH: A Chicago reporter asks Mayor Brandon Johnson to name one business leader who supports his head tax proposal.
The mayor cannot name one.
This comes one week after the mayor failed to name one other big city where a head tax similar to what he’s proposing is working well. https://t.co/2NADmbrvd0 pic.twitter.com/BMqbpzhby1
— Austin Berg (@Austin__Berg) December 15, 2025
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Comments
Lost its mind. No point in looking for what they lost since it won’t be found. If the city can hang on a few more years they are betting a D in the White House or at least in control of Congress will find a way to bail them out.
Sooooooo grateful to be out of Chicago. I miss only the vibe, nothing else.
The Feds guarantee bankrupt pensions, but only at a “reasonable” level. The rest is haircut. That sounds like a fix for insane pension promises.
ERISA covers private sector not public sector (gov’t) plans. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation , PBGC, doesn’t insure govt pension plans.
Public sector employees in Illinois do have an enforceable contractual right to the provisions of whatever the plan was the day they were hired. The Illinois Constitution requires the ‘undiminished’ payout to public employees at that level.
That’s interesting. In bankruptcy though there’s a priority for payouts and the pensioners would be general creditors, behind for example bondholders. Not that the law has ever mattered. GM bondholders for example got screwed in favor of the unions, even though the law gives bondholders precedence. They “voluntarily gave up” their rights. “Nice bank you have there.”
Not necessarily, first generally speaking, States can’t declare bankruptcy. The city of Chicago could file for bankruptcy, but they need permission and/or acquiescence of the State Gov’t to do so. With the Illinois Constitutional provision requiring ‘undiminished’ payout to public sector employees their pension plans might not be impacted by a bankruptcy b/c the State would probably demand (might not have a choice but to do so) that Chicago honor its pension obligations before granting approval. There would likely be huge political pressure from public sector unions on State officials to keep their pensions whole.
There will come a day when the accumulated pension liability of the Chicago public employees exceeds any possible budgetary payout. Since the IL constitution forbids the amount being reduced, the easy solution is to slap a 20% tax on all IL public pensions paid inside the state, %50 on any paid to non-residents, and an additional 80% on any pensions paid over a certain dollar value of let’s say $100k for example. There we go, problem solved in a very Democratic way.
georgefelis,
They’re probably past that point already. There will absolutely come a day when the rating agencies stop pretending Chicago can fund its liabilities and/or institutional investors stop buying/holding their debt. Things gonna be super fun to observe from afar but not as much as seeing the Public sector unions trying to sting up from the nearest tree/lamp post whoever puts your plan forward.
Just prior to Biden stealing the 2020 election, nearly every single blue state and city was in the red.
As president, Biden almost instantly offset those deficits by handing out huge federal bailouts under the name of “Covid relief”, postponing the inevitable collapse of these same cities and states.
Now the chickens have come home to roost, as Democrats being Democrats, just peed through all that money as well as handing it out like candy to all their usual pals and pet projects.
They have no idea how to handle money responsibly as they are largely all criminals, (see MN), and genuinely don’t give a crap about the taxpayer.
But that old Thatcher adage resounds loudly, as in this is what happens when you run out of other people’s money.
They will never, ever learn.
The Church of Envy (Karl Marx Synod) has only one sermon: “Eat The Rich!”
The
parasitesparishoners are loyal, but the miracles never show up.Commie Mayor Wu in Boston is in a similar position. Although she’s a Harvard grad, so unlike Johnson, she must be “wicked smart”.
She is wicked. Not sure about the smaht part.
paht 🙂
LOL!! Nobody that holds a rabidly racist party for “electeds of color” is any kind of smart, but it might be racist Hahvahd smaht.
I’ve heard her speak. She”s wicked retahded.
Brandon Johnson isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. His entire work experience prior to becoming mayor has been as an ‘organizer’, last for the Chicago Teachers Union. He has no leadership, financial, or management experience at all. So it’s not surprising he can’t organize and sell a realistic budget.
What is a bit surprising is that the normally pliant (e.g., doormat) city council is pushing back. Not sure whether reality is taking hold or the alder-critters are just unhappy about not getting their fair share of the boodle.
But this budget and the ongoing four decade old pension saga, combined with the Illinois state constitution prohibition on ever reducing a pension once granted, means that Chicago is seriously boned. You’d have to reduce city spending by almost half — not a bad idea but the half Hizzoner would eliminate is the stuff the city actually needs.
So look for bankruptcy in the next couple years.
“What is a bit surprising is that the normally pliant (e.g., doormat) city council is pushing back. Not sure whether reality is taking hold or the alder-critters are just unhappy about not getting their fair share of the boodle.”
A rising tide lifts all boats, but an empty silo starves the vermin.
If red states would refuse to send the trucks with grain to the cities and suburbs for just one month we could remind the libtard Vermericans where their allegiances should actually lie.
What Chicago needs is for businesses to speak up – RIGHT NOW – stating that they will simply refuse to pay any such “head tax”.
There needs to be real push back on this sort of unconstitutional BS.
It probably isn’t unconstitutional just a dumbass policy that will drive up costs for employers. At the margin of individual business that means less hiring and across the City means employers avoiding Chicago for expansion, relocating or closing down altogether,
I highly doubt it would stand a challenge on constitutional grounds. How can a city just arbitrarily begin charging a per-employee fee? Further, how can it charge that fee only on employers of a given size or larger?
It’s not just dumbass policy, but absolute bullshit.
The employers targeted by such a regulation should just refuse, and if Chicago punishes them, they should sue.
“Further, how can it charge that fee only on employers of a given size or larger?”
I can see how one would think this is unfair, but I can’t see how one could believe it is unprecedented. The federal government alone is rife with taxes and regulations that don’t apply to business entities under a certain size, The ADA is one example, right off the top of my head.
Notably, TikTok challenged the PAFACA Act as a bill of attainder, because it was tailored specifically (by specifying a minimum number of subscribers) so that only TikTok would be targeted by it.
Having precedent does not make something correct.
Hey, to paraphrase Giorgio A. Tsoukalos:
“I’m not sayin’ they’re gonna do it, but… they’re gonna do it.”
If the tax is applied in a neutral manner even where thresholds for triggering it were established it would probably be just as constitutional as our Federal tax code with its great many differences in impact on taxpayers. It isn’t as if we have a flat tax without any deductions, exclusions, credits at the Federal level.
I beg to differ in part. They need to do more than refuse to pay such a tax. They need to do like corporations are doing in California and get out of the city/state. They are beyond recovery and residents and businesses need to save themselves.
Subotai Bahadur
I find myself agreeing that this is the classical, nonviolent way to respond to tyranny… however, not wishing to be a zero-moves-ahead thinker like progressives are, I worry that blues driving reds out of territory after territory represents both tactical and strategic victory for the parasitic class. Once having established secure footholds in “lawless cities,” like pirates or western desperadoes, a pattern of incursions, raids, and annexations is sure to follow. There comes a time when ceding territory to predators and surviving is no longer possible.
Once most everyone who should leave is out ‘Nuke it from space, it’s the only way to be sure’. You really don’t want to be the trail vehicle in the last convoy trying to get the heck out of there.
More realistically for your scenario (general breakdown of order/rise of urban warlords) is these parasitic enclaves, once they are denuded of the productive, will turn on each other before they can figure out how/where the food is stored and grown outside the cities. Heck within less than a week, ten days tops they gonna be eating each other after they’ve pilfered the last can of beans. Even if they did figure it out quickly it isn’t as if everyone ‘down on the farm’ is gonna sit on their hands while a ravenous mob pours out into the countryside. Too many farm boys and farm girls for that matter are vets with enough experience to know what sitting back passively would bring.
Voters get who they vote for so maybe this will teach them something? I doubt it but miracles do happen. Like NYC, Chicago will soon be a dangerous jungle where businesses refuse to operate or pay to play.
The problem, of course, that not only the voters get who they vote for, but you get them, too. No one anywhere that I have ever lived has ever voted for Pelosi, Schumer, Lautenberg, Newsom, or Mamdani, but actions they take and laws they pass have and will continue to affect all of us negatively, including those of us who live nowhere near them.
Correction: voters get who the dead vote for – and the dead always vote D.
It seems as if history repeats itself again. NYC, Cleveland both tethered on the brink of bankruptcy. The federal government told them no bailout. They came through it in better shape. Somewhat. Chicago is a classic case of when you put off the inevitable at some point it catches up and there is no more deferment. Congress should pass a law that all State and Local pensions MUST be made current by acceptable national fiduciary standards within the next 5 years. If they can’t or won’t the federal government reserves the right to take over their budget process. Might run into issues with State governments, but definitely can force locals to adhere to GAAP.
Most plausible explanation for Chicago’s (and other blue cities) reckless fiscal behavior: anticipation of a future federal bailout when (if?) the Democrats regain power. But who bails out the federal government? Answer: it bails out itself by buying its own debt. The Federal Reserve is about to do that right now to “manage market liquidity.” No wonder we have a gold buying frenzy. Buying your own debt is a prescription for currency destruction. US fiat money is dying before out eyes. Such is the power of exponential (geometric in the discrete domain) growth. Mathematically one tracks the outstanding principal. Thus: today’s principal is yesterday’s principal plus an interest rate times yesterday’s principal minus the payback. With insufficient payback, the debt becomes unstable and “blows up.” That’s where we are now. If the doubling time is shrinking then we have “super exponential growth. Plot the debt on log paper and look for a non-linear slope. Pure exponential growth blows up at infinity, but super exponential grows up up at a predictable finite point in time. Has any tried to model US debt this way? I don’t know, but I can do it. Gets somewhat technical. For a discussion see Didier Sornette’s book: “Why Stock Markets Crash.” On the other hand, does anyone really care? The pols hope the currency destruction will be someone else’s problem. The general public has trouble with basic arithmetic. So buy gold. Get and keep the metal itself.
Several states such as IL and CA, and municipalities such as Chicago have huge unfunded pension liabilities. The chickens were coming home to roost in 2020, then the feds printed several trillion dollars of play money and passed it out, allowing them to kick the can down the road and shift the cost for this delay onto all taxpayers nation wide. They’re trying/hoping they can kick the can again to at least 2029 when Trump will be out of office, then get bailed out again.
100% true.
Yes. And that’s another way that “you get” affected by the officials that stupid people somewhere else voted for.
This summer, Gov Pritzker signed into a law that added over $11 billion (added costs through 2055) to Chicago’s pension funds for police and fire.
Before the change, employees who began their careers before 2011, have a much more robust pension then new hires.
Those hired after 2010 have a lower pension amount.
The bill was passed in the final days of session without any public hearings or advance notice.
Chicago lost it’s mind…….
…….by electing Johnson, the stupidest mayor in history!
That said, Lori Lightfoot was no prize either….
Electing Dem mayors is what electing Dems to the presidency will be like, writ small.
Has Chicago lost its mind? Or has Johnson lost his?
Can’t lose what you never had in the first place.
And here I thought the alien Lightfoot was the worst mayor in Chicago’s recent history. This guy seems determined to take the crown.
During Johnson’s term, debt owed to City of Chicago increased by $1 Billion (total now exceeds $8 Billion.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdogs/2025/11/25/debts-unpaid-fines-chicago-city-hall-mayor-brandon-johnson?fbclid=IwZnRzaAOufdFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeNXAp3M0OyxhwgpwmP7jZQIcqBFaUtO6z5cWOtHCCjXXbgGGcRIGLuhXqPrA_aem_wlc1VeOKrXMnjYVxrOPjcg#mj8w1v8l0u5akzs3urq
Lost what mind? I don’t think they had one to lose in the first place. Whoever is planning the budget there is obviously a complete and utter more and doesn’t understand basic mathematics. But, I guess it’s too much that government lives within it’s means.
Lost its mind decades ago minimum of 90 years
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