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After Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson equated fiscal responsibility to slavery, the Windy City’s flirtation with bankruptcy has grown increasingly serious thanks to benefits “like free junk food.”

As with efforts to defund the police and harbor illegal aliens in so-called “sanctuary cities,” earnest media coverage was all it took to expose the devastation of leftist policies. In addition to driving away successful companies like Boeing and Tyson Foods over safety issues and an unfavorable business environment, Chicago’s history of handouts is catching up in a big way because of public employee pension plans.

Writing for the New York Times, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Andrew Biggs penned an op-ed titled “What’s the Matter With Chicago?” where he presented the city’s fiscal woes which included owing bondholders almost $29 billion. It also faces $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. And these figures do not include an additional $14 billion in unfunded benefits owed to Chicago’s teachers.”

“Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians — everyone loves them, and the bills don’t arrive until later,” asserted Biggs as The Civic Federation estimated a budget deficit of $982.4 million. “They can be ruinous for a city’s long-term fiscal health.”

A provided example laid out how after 35 years on the job, a city worker with a $75,000 annual salary would be receiving a combined $77,000 in pension and retiree health benefits per year, “In other words, Chicago is paying for the past, not investing for the future.”

Amid a budget battle that saw the City Council bat down Hizzoner’s proposed $300 million increase in property tax to make up some of the deficit, Johnson equated fiscal responsibility to slavery and said, “When our people wanted to be liberated and emancipated in this country, the argument was, ‘you can’t free black people because it would be too expensive.’ They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate black people.”

“And now you have detractors making the same argument of the confederacy when it comes to public education in this system. These are the people who package these gimmicks, lied to our people, stole money from our people, refuse to pay into the pension system, left the taxpayers with the bill, and for me to fix it,” he went on.

Meanwhile, as the Illinois Policy Institute reported pension debt rose from $142.2 billion to $143.7 billion over the past year, retirement benefits and debt service equated to 43% of the city’s budget for 2022 and Johnson had police drag residents out of a public forum as they protested more spending on illegal aliens, Biggs went on to suggest, “There may be no way for Mr. Johnson to get Chicago out of its fiscal mess without political and economic pain. But he, and the rest of America’s big city mayors, have an obligation to try.”

As things stand, the Truth in Accounting watchdog group has graded Chicago with an “F” for fiscal responsibility and ranked it 74 out of 75 cities, topped only by New York City.

Kevin Haggerty
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