Posted on 06/02/2024 2:06:02 PM PDT by Rummyfan
A fight broke out late one Saturday night, or, more accurately, early Sunday morning, at a bar on Chicago’s South Side. Someone called the police just after 4:30 AM. But the police didn’t come. The fight soon moved outside; one man issued a threat, got into his car, and then plowed it into the crowd, just before five o’clock. Three people were killed. Still no police. An officer wasn’t dispatched until 5:20 and didn’t arrive until more than an hour after the original call.
Chicago faces a dire police shortage. (See “Can We Get Back to Tougher Policing?,”) Over half of high-priority 911 calls had no cops available to respond. One important reason is that the city is now allocating almost half of its budget to debt and pensions, leaving ever less for essential services, including public safety. The municipal government is acting more like a conduit channeling money from residents to check-collectors than a protector of its citizens’ rights and liberties.
Chicago has dominated America’s heartland since the late nineteenth century. As the City of the Big Shoulders, it has been a place whose self-reliance and drive allowed it to compete with coastal metros boasting more obvious advantages. Chicago’s landscape and weather may leave something to be desired, but the city’s combination of cosmopolitanism and localism, embodied in its diverse neighborhoods, has helped give it a distinctive American personality. Yet bad services, corrupt politics, and elevated crime have made life in Chicago increasingly unpleasant, all worsened by the city’s parlous finances.
An ever-mounting debt burden is the greatest threat to the city’s survival. As that problem worsens, more residents will question whether they want to stay in a windswept city paying down someone else’s pension—or decamp for places that don’t place such a millstone around their citizens’ necks.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Debt = Democrats
An hour? Was he dispatched from Indiana?
This means nothing. Chicago is a bloated, woke, welfare Democrat City, which is absolutely foundational for Democrat control and social narrative.
Every national crisis, real or manufactured, is an opportunity for the left-wing administrative state to bail-out their key constituencies. The more debt = the bigger crisis = the bigger bail-outs = more leftist politics. Wash, rinse, repeat.
As long as the USA continues with its present centrally-planned, printed, fiat, Federal Reserve currency and the massive debt it allows, this is the political system you will have.
Hang on, Chicago. If Biden (or his replacement) cheats his way to a win this November, you can expect a bailout.
Big Democrat cities are a treasure trove of votes. Biden will not easily abandon you! And the GOPe? They might fuss a bit. Then it’s off to the country club and martini time.
😕
“An ever-mounting debt burden is the greatest threat to the city’s survival.”
Same for the good ol’ USA...
SoCAL and LA have a MUCH bigger problem with retirement pensions. Public officials and functionaries there are getting outrageous salaries.
This article reminded me of a nonsense song from the late 60’s-
“You’d better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago
For he may eat your city soon.
You’d better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago
If he gets hungry, the whole damn country’s doomed”...
Sounds like the initial reports were “fight!” (at 4:30AM) it was only shortly before 5AM some people got killed by a car (IIRC). That’s 20 minutes. Because they probably didn’t bother to priority dispatch anyone for the first call because of no weapons (likely) or deaths.
Remember. When you are seconds away from harm, the police are only minutes away.
Don’t live in Illinois and I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the Illinois state constitution guarantees payment of pensions. Governments have to pay them even if it means cutting services.
And who gets a pension and how much he or she receives is also ‘special’. A union rep got a nice teacher pension after acting as a substitute in a classroom for one day.
It came from up above
Looking for something to eat
It landed in Chicago
It thought Chicago was a treat
It was sweet
It was just like sugar
The Eggplant That Ate Chicago-I think Norman Greenbaum wrote it-Everyone used to LOAO when we heard it...
All codes for DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!! Just freakin' say it out loud. DEMOCRATS have made life in Chicago (and so many other cities) way more than "unpleasant."
Politicians bought votes with promises knowing that they would move on before the bill came due.
Politicians have only one form of accountability, the ballot box, and once they learned they could stuff the ballot box there was nothing to hold them back.
(Yes, much worse)
1966
You’re dating yourself
That could be any city in Illinois. Chicago just has the largest amount of debt.
In the other hand, Pritzker is sending out summer food money to poor families in late August, after school starts and the kids don't have to miss meals while school is out. Is the local media outraged? No, they uniformly think it's a great idea.
LOL-I’m not one of those women who hides her age-does not bother me to date myself at all...
Can’t they just tax the new illegal alien arrivals???
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