The City of Chicago is dependent for revenue on service revenue (water and sewer charges, airline fees—$3.82 billion), local taxes (mostly sales tax—$1.83 billion), property taxes ($1.45 billion), non-tax revenue (fees and fines—$1.12 billion), and grants from the federal and Illinois state governments. All of these sources have largely dried up during the “stay at home” directive. When people can’t pay their rents, landlords aren’t likely to pay their taxes, either.
Can Chicago borrow? Its credit rating is already circling the drain and that will only drive it lower.
Chicago is still spending. It has budgeted $65 million for its emergency response and it continues to pay many city workers and the pensions of retired city employees. What happens when it runs out of money?
My guess is that fees and fines will go much higher, risking civil unrest. Wrongheaded, but I’d still bet on it.
The lockdown states and cities will threaten to implement mail-in voting and other means of fraud to threaten to vote 200% for Biden if they are not bailed out. And then implement the fraud when they are bailed out.
Heh. Yet another aspect of this stupid policy.
The situation reminds me of an old old Clifford Simak short story called ‘City’ (later incorporated into a fixup SF novel by the same name) where virtually all but the governmental inhabitants of a city had long since abandoned it for life in the countryside and squatters had moved into the foreclosed properties. A pitched battle ensues when the city police attempt to evict the squatters, which ends when a speculator appears showing proof that he had purchased all of the foreclosed properties for a song and now being the primary property owner declares the city charter dissolved.