The Chicago Tribune has criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson for announcing controversial tax proposals before his working group meets, warning that these measures could push businesses away from an already struggling city. The newspaper’s editorial board has expressed concerns that the mayor’s ideas, which include imposing a corporate head tax, a thinly disguised corporate income tax, and asking universities and non-profits to pay substantial sums in lieu of property taxes, are economically damaging and could worsen Chicago’s $1.3 billion deficit.
The Tribune’s editorial board has pointed out that these policies may discourage hiring and exacerbate the city’s economic challenges in the face of advancements in artificial intelligence, where many companies are already automating roles previously held by human workers. The newspaper has also warned that the mayor’s plans could lead to another budget crisis similar to last year’s, as he has laid out these proposals before his working group has even had the chance to discuss them. The Tribune has pointed out that by pushing these initiatives prematurely, Johnson has confirmed that the process is little more than a formality, with the administration’s goal always being to raise revenue from the wealthy to fund an expanding government apparatus.
Among the policies proposed by Johnson, the editorial board has singled out the corporate head tax as particularly disastrous. The policy, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel rightly killed in 2014, is one where businesses are taxed based on how many employees they have. The board argued such a policy is a disincentive to hire people, especially in light of the rise in artificial intelligence, where companies nationwide are already laying off workers who are performing functions corporate leaders believe AI can do instead. The Tribune warned that if Johnson truly wants to jump-start AI-induced white-collar employment losses in Chicago, there are few more effective ways than bringing back the head tax.
The editorial board has also highlighted another controversial proposal pushed by the nonprofit Institute for the Public Good, which has a representative on the mayor’s working group. Based on a tax Seattle approved several years ago, that group has floated an ‘excise tax’ on payrolls for those making $200,000 or more (including stock options and various forms of noncash compensation) — meant to substitute for a corporate income tax that Chicago doesn’t have the legal authority to impose.
The piece warned that across the multiple policies Johnson proposed, the Tribune expressed concerns that the mayor is once again focusing only on economically destructive taxes that are unlikely to gain broad support from skeptical aldermen. The newspaper has suggested that Johnson’s actions risk a reprise of last year’s eleventh-hour budget crisis. The Tribune has also pointed out that the mayor laid out these and other policy proposals long before his working group will discuss them at an upcoming meeting in August, a key detail which the Tribune suggests speaks volumes about his leadership.
By saying he’s on board with several highly controversial tax proposals before his group even weighs in, Johnson now has confirmed, at least in the minds of his numerous skeptics, that the exercise always was little more than window dressing for an administration bent on doing what it has wanted to do from the start — soak the ‘rich’ in order to bankroll an ever-growing government apparatus.