Good thing Mayor Johnson doesn't have Mayor Daley' s City Council

Good thing Mayor Johnson doesn't have Mayor Daley' s City Council

 

From his first election in 1955 till his death in 1976, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley (Richard I) had a City Council to live for. With virtually no opposition except Independent 5th Ward Alderman Leon Despres, Daily ruled over Chicag0 like a Soviet style Politburo Chief. Whatever budget Daley wanted he got. Fortunately he was determined to keeping property taxes manageable .

 

Forty-eight years on Mayor Brandon Johnson enjoys not a compliant City Council, but one determined to protect beleaguered Chicago taxpayers from profligate spender Johnson. Instead of making large, sensible cuts to a vastly bloated city payroll, he proposed a huge $300 million tax increase to help close the near billion dollar initial budget gap. But over half the Council forced Johnson to pair back his proposed increase to $150 billion, then to $68.5 million, finally to no tax hike at all

 

Bravo City Council and raspberries for you Mayor Johnson. On Day One as mayor, Johnson's Job One was to assess a massively overstaffed City Hall weighed down by a 30% increase in full time employees since just before COVID hit. Those new hires were financed by the US American Rescue Plan Act. That dough is gone but the excess employees are still there exploding Chicago’s budget deficit.

 

When Daley could count on 49 votes to make ‘Chacaga the greatest city in the world’, being mayor sure was lots of fun. Not so for Mayor Johnson who can’t even muster 26 of 50 votes to pass his confiscatory budget.

 

Mayor Johnson means well with his progressive agenda to uplift Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. All Chicagoans of good will support that effort. But Johnson must not forget Joe Taxpayer whose needs must also be considered. Johnson has yet to learn the lesson that governance is the art of the possible…not the impossible.