Working people pay more to make the city run than do the rich – property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, etc.
If we work for our living in Illinois, we pay 10% OR MORE of our income in state and local taxes.
But the very wealthy pay less than half that, less than 5%.
Bad enough – but then the city of Chicago adds fees, penalties and tickets that hit working people much harder than the wealthy!
And the city increases what we pay for services: CTA fares, sewer rates, water rates.
The political establishment uses Chicago city government to take money from our income so it can give more money to corporate thieves.
The Marriott by McCormick place, the Target on Damen, and the Mariano's supermarket on Halsted all got tax money through TIF funds.
Big companies like Boeing, MillerCoors, and United Airlines got huge tax breaks for their headquarters.
Banks like Morgan Stanley and big corporations like Aramark got enormous sums when the city privatized parking meters, custodial services in the public schools, the Skyway, and downtown parking garages.
The big banks get even more money through fraudulent bond deals, like the one that cost the school system an extra 100 million dollars.
This is what public budgets are today under capitalism.
Robbing from the working people to give to the corporations, the banks and the "developers."
Strong-arming the poor to make up for what the rich don't pay.
This is capitalist policy.
We need a working class policy.
Take back the money the capitalists and their politicians stole from us.
Use public money for services to the public, that is, to the working people of Chicago.
Let the wealthy, the big corporations, the giant banks pay the taxes. They have squirreled away most of the wealth.
It's a policy that only the working class can impose – and only through its struggles.