Companies are already vowing to leave Chicago over additional taxes promised by its new mayor – a progressive tasked with addressing the city’s dwindling image under predecessor Lori Lightfoot.
Set to be sworn in a matter of hours, Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson beat out more moderate Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas earlier this month to earn the spot – something business leaders like CME Group Inc are already peeved about.
Appearing on a podcast Sunday, the chief executive of the country’s foremost financial derivatives exchange, Terry Duffy, voiced his distaste over additional taxes planned by the ex union organizer, who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
Intended to dig the city out of its current financial hole, the increases are aimed at high earners and companies headquartered in the Windy City – whom, as CME is already proving, are likely to put up a political fight.
Apart from the array of tax increases, Johnson – a relative unknown in a heated mayoral race – has his hands full when he takes the reigns Monday, facing an influx of migrants in need of shelter and summer months that historically breed violent crime.
Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, 57, will take office on Monday facing an influx of migrants in desperate need of shelter, pressure to build support among skeptical business leaders, and summer months that historically bring a spike in violent crime
Set to be sworn in a matter of hours, Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson beat out more moderate Chicago schools CEO Paul Vallas earlier this month to earn the spot – something business leaders like CME Group Inc in the city’s Downtown are already peeved about
Speaking to the Odd Lots podcast about 24 hours before the ceremony that will see the former Chicago schoolteacher succeed his similarly aligned predecessor, Duffy made it clear his firm is willing to join several businesses like Tyson, Caterpillar, and Boeing in relocating, if Johnson does not heed his and others’ warnings.
‘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.’
That aside, Johnson already has a full agenda ahead of himself Monday, after arriving at Michele Clark Magnet School in Austin to be inaugurated, with the ceremony kicking off at 10:30am.
At that point, the Democrat – accompanied by a tight security detail – made his way to UIC’s Credit Union One Arena, where Lightfoot and others were in attendance.
Having beat out Lightfoot and a host of other less progressive Democrats earlier in the month, Johnson takes the reigns as Lightfoot’s office face ire from fed-up citizens for their city’s current state.
Officials from both parties have slammed recent ‘lawlessness’ seen in the city under Lightfoot, which reached levels not seen in decades during the pandemic and has since failed to return to prepandemic levels.Â
The progressive notoriously slashed a whopping $59 million from the Chicago Police Department budget in 2020 during the Defund the Police protests – but performed an abrupt about-face on that policy in August of 2021, amid increasing crime and mass walkouts by the city’s peace officers.
Compounding the unrest were riots by Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police supporters – both movements that Lightfoot had touted during her campaign run.
At the time, the city recorded its deadliest year in decades, with 2021 seeing 797 murders – the most recorded since the mid-1990s. Crime, particularly shootings, has since persisted, with overall crimes up by more than 43 percent from last year.
The city of Chicago’s police department, meanwhile, had also been increasingly at odds with Lightfoot, whose championing of progressive policies have also put her in the crosshairs of conservative critics across the country.
‘Mr. Johnson has no legal authority to impose a transaction tax on my business,’ said CME’s CEO, adding that the relatively green politician should focus on the task of fighting the city’s crime instead. Recent crime figures show that in the year to date crime is still up by 43 percent
Roughly 24 hours before the mayor was sworn in, the exec made it clear his firm is willing to join several businesses like Tyson and Boeing in relocating, if Johnson does not heed his and others’ warnings
A 700-page Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity-Today law, championed by Lightfoot in January instituted a host of criminal justice reforms in Illinois, including an end to cash bail in January.Â
Lightfoot has also since denounced the ‘defund the police’ movement, unveiling a new plan to – ironically – ‘refund the police.’
It came as part of a plan that saw $16.7 billion of spending, provided by the federal government, funneled into the embattled police department, lifting its annual budget to $1.9 billion from $1.7 billion.
The plan heavily relied on money from Washington to dig the city out of a deficit that reached new heights under Lightfoot, and outlined prospective funding for new community programs the mayor asserted will help the troubled city pull through the ongoing pandemic while addressing prevailing issues of gun violence and crime.
Nearly two, violent crimes are still up across the board in Chicago, especially when compared to prior to the pandemic – around the time Lightfoot was sworn into office in May 2019.
Murders are up 11 percent since 2019, on pace with rates seen during the peak of the pandemic, when officials recorded a record 644 murders,
That marker was subsequently surpassed as Lightfoot cut funding for the city’s police force in 2021, when there were 676 slayings – the most seen since the mid-1990s.
Since then, murders have trickled down slightly, but theft, robbery, and overall crimes are still on the rise – all experiencing double-digit increases during some of the city’s worst years, crime-wise, in history.Â
 Johnson is also taking on a growing migrant crisis. Chicago is among the U.S. cities already struggling to provide shelter and other help to hundreds arriving from the southern border. Pictured, a migrant couple from Venezuela sit with their children on the playground at Brands Park in Chicago, Illinois
Shootings in the Windy City, meanwhile, remain an issue – as figures like Johnson promise to get guns off Chicago’s streets.
That effort, however, has for the most part fallen flat, with at least 14 people shots over the weekend, three of them fatally, in a time where 50 shootings in a two-day span are not out of the ordinary
