Posted on 08/04/2016 7:54:59 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday called for a new tax on city water and sewer bills to stabilize the city's largest pension fund, a move he portrayed as his latest tough decision to secure Chicago's financial future.
Emanuel's plan, which would increase the average water and sewer bill by 30 percent over the next four years, was quickly met with resistance from some aldermen who argued the city would be better off adding business taxes or even raising property taxes again to come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to keep the city's municipal workers' pension fund from going bust.
Still, Emanuel projected confidence his plan ultimately would win approval in the City Council, which rarely rebuffs the mayor's proposals and has yet to independently provide its own solution to solidify any of the city's four major pension systems that have been woefully underfunded for more than a decade.
In a speech to about 200 financial investors Wednesday, Emanuel unveiled his water and sewer tax plan while making the case to Wall Street that his administration has done the hard work to brighten Chicago's dark financial picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
What a loser.
if you have your career started and thinking about having kids -— why would you settle in Chicago and have to pay this mess for the next 20 years.
Time to pay the piper Chicago.
I have an idea: How about they eliminate pensions and go to social security like the peons? That would save them billions and billions.
As I have said many times, I don't want to see anyone lose his pension. But the unions are stonewalling reform, and sooner or later, we will be forced to make some hard choices. If it were up to me, I'd write down the pensions to their actuarily sustainable levels and tell retirees, "Sorry, but these numbers have been known for 30 years. You and your unions have defeated every constructive attempt to deal with them. You made your bed. Sleep in it."
I thought they just raised property taxes!!! How much can you raise taxes and rates???? Glad I got out of there.
Unions are the largest campaign donors of all time according to “open secrets”
They give 99% of that money to democrats.
No democrat could get elected in a major city without thier support.
Democrats will not cut one penny of any union pensions.
They will tax their citizens to oblivion and force them to flee. Drive their city into bankruptcy. And then demand a bailout. But not one pension will be cut.
Raum may want to look to Detroit for a view of the future.
The people most able to pay will leave 1st. The people left will not pay their water & sewer bills, or the additional tax.
I suspect my city’s Board of Commissioners is doing just that.
I am single, live alone and have very low expenses for electricity. Less than $45 per month during summer; more during winter. The city utilities are very much higher with my sewer fees being around $80 per month - no matter the amount of water usage. Whenever I have reduced my water usage, the sewer fees have risen.
The city commissioners have refused to make public the city’s pension review. It is hard not to view the situation as the citizens getting screwed.
Taxing the water people need to live to support union goons. What else would you expect from these demons?
I don’t understand why government employees get gold plated retirements...this has to stop. That includes police and especially firemen
When the last Chicago Conservative leaves Chicago, please do not flush your toilet nor drink the water.
I live in the burbs of chicago. Where my friends live in lakeview its becoming a war zone with muggings, stabbings, and people getting punched in the face for their cell phones.
More wealth transfer to organized democrat voters.
Government tax authority. Last vestige of parasites that will tax you on the water you drink, then tax you again when you pee it out. Absolute double taxation.
They are better than you and me. They are almost as special as teachers and government street department workers.
In Ohio the local communities are required to put 25% of the wages a fireman and policeman makes into the Public Employees Retirement System. That is almost four times the cost Social Security would be to the tax payers.
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