If folks who had the means hadn’t left Chi-Town yet, get ready for the tax base to bleed my friends.

Gooderer and harderer doesn’t begin to cover the good times they’ve voted in for themselves.

The new Chicago mayor, long-time teachers’ union hack Brandon Johnson, had already raised the ire of the biggest local newspaper this morning with his want-ad for a deputy mayor.

I don’t know what the Chicago Tribune thought they were getting with this guy, but they seem surprised and kind of pissed about it all the same.

Editorial: On Brandon Johnson’s first day, he puts out a disastrous job description for deputy mayor

As Mayor Brandon Johnson was celebrating “the soul of Chicago” in his inaugural speech, his office was churning out a batch of deeply radical executive orders that signal trouble ahead for anyone worried about tax increases or concerned with the fiscal stability of America’s third largest city.

The one that most immediately caught our attention was Johnson’s executive order creating a new deputy mayor for labor relations.

Once through the usual array of whereases and therefores, you get down to the nitty-gritty of the job description for this new post. It’s a stunner.

…Even Johnson’s most fervent supporters should hope that the new mayor will make some effort to stress his independence from his union paymasters. After all, he applied for, and was elected to, the position of Chicago’s chief executive officer. His first responsibility is to Chicagoans who are trusting him to be a steward of the hard-earned money they pay in taxes and deliver them functional services. This is not a political observation, it’s common sense.

…The Deputy Mayor for Labor Relations is responsible for working with all City agencies and departments to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of Chicago; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights, including working with relevant authorities to help enforce workers’ statutory rights.

That’s a gift-wrapped present for the CTU [Chicago Teachers Union], which probably had a big hand in its composition. It says nothing whatsoever about any obligation to protect taxpayers, homeowners, businesses or, frankly, even the democratic process. It basically says: Do what unionized workers want, find more ways to give them more of what they want, and your annual review will be just dandy. Any private sector manager, or even a private sector union leader, closely reading that language, would be shaking their head in amazement.

…In short, this job description is a disaster and it needs to be immediately rewritten so as to reflect the dual responsibilities of the job, which is to navigate and mediate between legitimate union demands and the ability of the city to meet them without casting citizens from their homes or sending off Chicago businesses to Florida.

ZOMG! The consumate teachers’ union tool is catering to the unions that got him elected in CHICAGO? Say it ain’t so.

Is Mayor Brandon Johnson's 1st responsibility to the people of #Chicago or to the unions that helped elect him? His newly created deputy mayor for labor relations says it's to the unions.
Read the @chitribopinions editorial at https://t.co/RdMr8Up1ua pic.twitter.com/GGOvwdpGjp

— Scott Stantis (@ScottStantis) May 17, 2023

Save your hankies and smelling salts for later, Trib. You’re going to need them.

As for worrying about “sending off Chicago businesses to Florida,” more of the new mayor’s dear (read: radical) friends and close associates released their budget plans this morning, and baby?

You could hear the bags and boxes being packed, rolls of heavy duty package tape ripping, and frantic calls to 1-8GE-TOU-TNOW to lock on a U-HAUL..

This looks friendly, no?

It’s not. Not even remotely.

Leftist allies of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson have proposed a budget plan that would tax the rich and businesses, and would effectively defund police in a city already nearly crippled by crime.

The budget plan was proposed by ACRE, the Action Center on Race and the Economy, in conjunction with the People’s Unity Platform and is titled “$12 Billion for a Just Chicago.” The first page begins with step one of the plan: “First we get the money.”

Anytime you see billions of dollars wrapped in anything preceded by “just,” you know it’s anything but.

How they get their hands on the $12B for a “Just Chicago” is the catch.

AY DIOS MIO

Got that?

“Head tax” of $33 per worker for companies with 50+ employees

Quadrupling the tax on jet fuel.

3.5% income tax on households making $100K+

0.4% “wealth tax” for the top 10% of city earners.

$1-2 transaction tax for financial exchanges.

Ignore that shuffling noise in the background. It’s nothing. Just the Chicago Mercantile Exchange threatening to move to Florida.

The head of CME says the trading giant is prepared to leave the city of Chicago if it has to https://t.co/tb6WU3c6BN

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) May 15, 2023

The CME head bubba is snorting fire.

…’Mr. Johnson has no legal authority to impose a transaction tax on my business,’ said Duffy, adding that the relatively green politician should focus on the gargantuan task of fighting the city’s crime epidemic instead of putting the squeeze on businesses.

Duffy – whose firm is worth an estimated $66billion and is responsible for both Chicago and New York’s mercantile exchanges – sarcastically sniped Johnson should not ‘get too bogged down on how he’s going to short-term think’ the slipshod plans.

He added of Johnson, who for the past four years served as a commissioner in crime-ridden Cook County: ‘He’s going to raise taxes on certain people in order to fit his agenda.’

And HELLO?! An extra 3.5% on HOUSEHOLDS – not individuals – households making $100K in CHICAGO. Holy crap – are they all on crack? You can hardly afford to put a roof over your head, less mind buy milk with a HOUSEHOLD making $100K considering cost of living and all their insane taxes already. Then these rapacious fools think you’re so well off, they can soak you some more?

LEST WE FORGET, in a city which already has a teensy bit of a muy malo crime problemo, these reformers for a Just Chicago have plans for the Chicago Police Department, too.

…The budget plan calls for $12 billion in new taxes — which would reportedly come in part from reducing the Chicago Police Department budget ($1.94 billion in 2023) by 9%, or approximately $175 million. The city would also eliminate all current police department vacancies – which, in August of 2022, amounted to over 900 patrol officer vacancies and over 100 detective vacancies.

…The plan also demanded that Chicago refuse to use any federal money to fund law enforcement or Wall Street interests, arguing that investing that money in public housing would contribute more to community safety.

Who needs those 1000 officers if they aren’t already here? Never missed them. Sure enough, makes perfect sense rationally and morally, which is what Just Chicago is all about. A “moral” budget.

Never you mind those bodies in the street.

“Combined wisdom” is an absolute hoot, as long as you don’t live in Chicago.

It’s more like “combined socialist grift” wrapped up in a neat package, with a morality shellack slapped all over it that would have never seen the light of day had Chicago not voted for a guy who told them exactly who he was.

And, man – is Chicago gonna get him and all his friends, with hands reaching into your pockets for what little money you have left, and right out the box from his very first day.