It worked in Russia and Cuba, why not Chicago?

On this episode of “Chicago Mayors Say the Darndest Things”.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he wants to open city-owned grocery stores to serve neighborhoods that have become “food deserts” after four Walmart stores and a Whole Foods closed.

It worked in the USSR. It worked in Cuba. It worked in Venezuela. It’s bound to work in Chicago.

Since Illinois just eliminated bail and Johnson came into office to defend criminals, there’ll be nothing in those stores left 5 minutes after they open.

Good thing Chicago is swimming in excess cash that it can just spend on insane plans like this.

One of Brandon Johnson’s first moves as Chicago mayor was to buy himself time to address the city’s biggest financial problem: the more than $35 billion owed to its pension funds.

Just days after his May inauguration, Johnson persuaded state lawmakers to shelve legislation that would’ve added billions to the pension debt, while pledging to establish a working group to come up with solutions by October.

Now, the clock is ticking for the progressive Democrat to fix the worst pension crisis among major U.S. cities.

CTU, Johnson’s old union, helped load up more underfunded pension debt.

Much of that comes from Johnson’s own notoriously greedy Chicago Teachers Union. After their 2019 strike, senior teachers are expected to make six figures this year. CTU members will score $84,313 after five years which rises to almost $100,000 after ten years on the job of not teaching kids. CTU is not only destroying children: it’s also destroying the future of the city.

CTU abused its political power to rob the pensions of its own members with a ‘pension holiday’ and then imposed a special property tax to subsidize its pensions without having to go through the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law. Chicago property taxes have doubled in a decade, and CTU’s pensions are still more underfunded than ever to the tune of $13 billion.

Those taxes are going to pensions.

Already, the third-largest U.S. city spends roughly $1 of every $5 on pensions, while more than 80 percent of property-tax dollars go toward retirement payouts.

And it gets worse from there.

the city also faces an unfunded pension liability of $150 billion; that’s nearly $150,000 per Chicago household.

So what? Just declare bankruptcy.

The new poll, conducted earlier this month by the Chicago-based polling firm Ogden and Fry found that only 21 percent of Chicagoans support raising taxes to cover the city’s debts. Over 36 percent support using bankruptcy to restructure its debt.

And then open more government grocery stores that have nothing in them.

Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield