CHICAGO URBAN DAILY
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The ink on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2027 budget wasn’t even dry before the knives came out.
Johnson unveiled his $17.6 billion spending plan Wednesday to close an $882 million gap — reviving the corporate head tax as the “Equitable Employer Tax” ($25 a month per employee at firms with 125-plus workers, worth about $101 million), jacking the lease and cloud-computing tax from 15% to 20% (another $234 million), nearly doubling the sports-betting levy, and borrowing $480 million to pay off police-related legal settlements.
City Council response? Ice cold.
“Many of the revenue items that the mayor is proposing are probably dead on arrival,” said Finance Committee chairwoman Ald. Pat Dowell. “This basically says to me that our budget season is going to be difficult this year again.”
Ald. Scott Waguespack said it was “very troubling to see an administration move forward in this fashion again where they’re just doubling down.” Ald. Marty Quinn called the head tax “a tax on growth and it’s non-starter.” And the mayor lost two of his biggest labor allies — SEIU Locals 1 and 73 pulled their support and endorsed his challenger, Alexi Giannoulias.
Down on the street, small business owners say the pain lands on them, not the corporations. Joe Angelastri has run his business at Six Corners since 1978 — the City Newsstand, plus a café he added in 2011. “Every year it gets a little bit harder,” he told FOX 32. His five Chicago employees fall below the head-tax threshold, but the lease-tax hike hits him directly. “If they push us too hard, we’ll try things like working out of the suburbs or something so we don’t have to pay the taxes.”
Ald. Gilbert Villegas agrees the burden rolls downhill: “Microsoft, Google, they do not absorb that. They pass it down. And ultimately, it’s going to be regular people.”
Johnson counters that “every Chicagoan receives their fair share,” paid for “by asking wealthy corporations to pay their fair share.” The council, the small businesses, and now his own unions are saying otherwise.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season gets ugly.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
