I’ve mentioned before the number of times that Chicago’s credit rating has been lowered since Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor. Each time the city’s credit rating is lowered it means that the interest payments on that debt go up. Let’s put that into a little context. The graph above illustrates the city’s long term debt. The red vertical line is when Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor.
Bloomberg remarks on Chicago’s bond debt:
The Chicago way of borrowing works like this: The mayor asks city council members for bonding authority, and they give it to him.
That’s changing now that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is under siege from a federal investigation into the misconduct of his police department. A sign of just how much the scandal has undermined the mayor’s influence came this week when the council trimmed a $3.2 billion bonding plan by $600 million and delayed voting on another $200 million.“It’s a new day where aldermen want new questions answered,†Alderman Ricardo Munoz said Wednesday. “The city council as a body is not as trusting as it used to be.â€
While most of the borrowing was approved by the council, the resistance reflects a subtle power shift in Chicago, where mayoral omnipotence has long been the custom. Emanuel’s predecessor, Richard M. Daley, ruled Chicago for 22 years, as his father, Richard J. Daley, did for 21. Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff for Barack Obama, won a second four-year term in April.
All of those multi-million dollar settlements for police killings and torturing? It’s all borrowed money. And Chicago’s population is declining slowly. In 2000 the U. S. Census reported Chicago’s population as right around 2.9 million people. In 2010 it reported 2.7 million—a 6.7% drop in ten years. Each drop in the city’s population means the debt per resident rises.
Can Chicago afford three more years with Rahm Emanuel as mayor? Don’t blame me—I didn’t vote for him.
