The Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Mayor Lori Lighfoot have reached an agreement after 12 days of strike, an agreement that might have been reached without a strike at all. The CTU are getting large raises, there will be more hiring, and the city will pay for half of the strike. Here’s the assessment of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
The mayor is touting the new contract as the most generous in Chicago history, and she’s right. Even before the strike, the city had given in to most of the union demands. The new contract includes a 16% raise over five years (not including raises based on longevity), a three-year freeze on health insurance premiums, lower copays, caps on class sizes, and more than 450 new social workers and nurses.
Estimated cost to follow, but you can bet it will be expensive. Last week the mayor proposed a slew of tax increases including levies on ride-hailing services and restaurant meals. This week her staff suggested that property taxes may have to increase . . . again. Michelle Obama the other day complained that white people were leaving the city to escape minorities who are moving in. No, they’re fleeing Chicago’s high taxes and lousy schools—and so are minorities
Unfortunately for all of us, Mayor Lightfoot is unable to pay for these commitments. Her present budget already relies heavily on two assumptions: a generous refinancing of the city’s debt and a bailout from Springfield, neither of which are likely to come to pass.
The Chicago Public Schools are one downgrade from being unable to borrow at all. Chicago’s sales tax is already the highest of any major city in the country. Property taxes, also the highest in the country, are rising fast. My annual tax bill is already 10% of the original purchase price of my house and housing prices haven’t risen here in 25 years. No one doubts that our property taxes will rise. Those taxes will fall most heavily on the poor. Both the prosperous and less so are leaving the city in numbers.
The firefighters and police officers are next in line. They’ve been working without a contract for more than a year. Expect them to match or exceed the teachers’ demands.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=death+dirge+music&view=detail&mid=FFD3FED997CDE197E9E6FFD3FED997CDE197E9E6&FORM=VIRE
Or, if you prefer Chopin
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Funeral+Dirge&&view=detail&mid=C5F155E0558470D560B4C5F155E0558470D560B4&&FORM=VRDGAR
And then my favorite: Mozart
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Funeral+Dirge&&view=detail&mid=567731F948E27C1686C0567731F948E27C1686C0&rvsmid=C5F155E0558470D560B4C5F155E0558470D560B4&FORM=VDRVRV
Its obviously a completely entrenched one-party rule that infests IL and Chicago. It reminds me of something. Remember when the notion of the “deep state” was scoffed at?? Now we have Brennan and another CIAer talking (bragging) openly about it.
I sometimes wonder about people who won’t acknowledge the obvious. Dimwits? Blindly partisan? Liars? Fools?
You are too funny. It was MARGARET Brennan asking John McLAughlin about the deep state. McLaughlin sarcastically made fun of the idea. (Arent you the same guys who said Trump was just being funny/sarcastic when he asked the Russians to help?) McLaughlin went on to talk about having values that I guess you guys would have trouble understanding, like valuing country over personal loyalty, so I can see how that would be difficult to understand. You just won’t relate to what he said at all if you are a dimwit, blinded by the cult of personality, a liar, a fool or the type who values money above anything else. I will even provide the link for you so you can listen to what he said if you want.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/11/01/former_acting_cia_director_john_mclaughlin_on_impeachment_thank_god_for_the_deep_state.html
Steve
It’s more complicated than that. The Republicans and Democrats have divvied the state up into fiefdoms. John Kass calls it “the Combine”.
No Republicans have even bothered running for mayor of Chicago for the last several cycles. Complaining that voters won’t vote for you when you don’t even run is nuts. The Illinois Republican Party is essentially supine. Bruce Rauner was nominally a Republican but received little support from the state party. He got elected governor on his own steam.
There is truth to what you say, Dave. There is Chicago, North Shore types, far south side types and near St Louis types in the Dem camp. Then we have DuPage county, and downstate – Republican. By sq footage Republicans dominate. By voting power Democrats dominate. Each overwhelmingly.
You can claim that the decision not to run is nuts. I’d call it sane, and avoidance of suicide. If Dave Schuler ran for governor I’d cross lines and vote for you. Pritzker? I’m not yet mentally incompetent. It gets worse for Chicago mayor. You’d get slaughtered. It would be a fools errand. Same for a Republican. Why bother? People don’t jump off cliffs with home made wings and try to fly either. Wanna talk NYC or San Francisco?
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Nice try, steve. You may be the last hold out who doesn’t understand there is a deep state, which is really just a label for an entrenched bureaucracy with the motivation and capability to play corporate style dirty politics for their own personal interests and views. It’s not a novel concept. So what motivates your view? Dimwittedness. Liar? Necessary partisan denial?
I’m betting on the latter.
There has always been an entrenched bureaucracy that looks after its own interests*, but that is not what you Trumpkins really mean by that. What you mean is that there are people who are not loyal to Trump and are trying to stage a coup. So when someone places loyalty to country above loyalty to the president, the man not the office, that is the deep state at work. I wonder why you cant understand the concept of loyalty to country and need to make up the idea of the coup? Dimwitted Liar? Trapped in the cult of personality? Pretty obvious I think.
* I really did spend time in military as both enlisted and as an officer. I worked at the VA hospital in training. Trust me, I am well aware of the idea of the entrenched bureaucracy looking after its own interests. At the presidential level every president has to deal with he entrenched bureaucrats. Its part of your job as leader and manager to deal with that.
Steve
That wasn’t my claim. My claim was that not running on the one hand but complaining that the last Republican mayor of Chicago was in 1923 is sophistry. If you cede Chicago to the Democrats, don’t complain that you’ve ceded Chicago to the Democrats. You either compete or you don’t.
Are you willing, Dave, to put money, real money, behind your scolding to compete? Talk is cheap. Concepts are cheap. Why do you think the Dem candidates are dropping like flies. No one puts money behind a pipe dream.
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“What you mean is that there are people who are not loyal to Trump and are trying to stage a coup. Loyalty to country……â€
Seriously, steve? Loyalty to country? Adam Schiff. Pelosi. Brennan. Our intrepid whistleblower? Loyalty to country, and not policy differences and politics?
I withdraw my earlier query. It is now confirmed. Dim witted beyond belief.
Heh.
“The most vocal Trump haters frequently bemoan the lack of “profiles in courage†among Republicans, demanding that someone — anyone — defy their party to impeach the President.
I might ask: where is the Democratic profile in courage, someone willing to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and call the House impeachment what it is: a norm-obliterating, kangaroo court, run by a party that apparently has little confidence in its ability to beat Trump in the next election?
I doubt Trump loses any Republican votes in the Senate during his all-but-certain impeachment trial. And the numerous Senate Democrats running for president will be screaming about it, torn every day between showing up for jury duty and campaigning in Iowa.
In the end, Pelosi is doing nothing but checking a box for the most partisan people in her party. There will be nothing to show for it but wasted time and a diversion of the nation’s political conversation away from issues that real people care about.â€
No shit.