In a completely unprecedented and dare we say historic move, the ENTIRE Chicago City Council issued a resounding NO to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s massive property tax hike.

The Chicago City Council on Thursday unanimously rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed $300 million property tax hike, forcing the mayor and his budget team to go back to the drawing board to balance the city budget for 2025.

Aldermen scheduled a special meeting for Thursday to vote on Johnson’s tax hike plan, and voted unanimously to reject it without debate.

“It’s a devastating loss for Mayor Johnson. I’ve been here going on 17 years. I’ve never seen this kind of vote take place, and I think in many of our lifetimes, we’ve never seen this. So it sends a message that that massive property tax increase he was looking for is not going to happen,” Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said after Thursday’s vote.

Folks, we are talking about ALL FIFTY Chicago aldermen rejecting Johnson’s asinine idea. 

BREAKING: Chicago City Council just struck down Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's $300M property tax hike on a unanimous vote: 50-0. Stunning loss for a sitting mayor. Fantastic win for Chicagoans. https://t.co/pQ9n05XYse pic.twitter.com/01z1OTbEXO

— Austin Berg (@Austin__Berg) November 14, 2024

Johnson floated the property tax increase despite promising there wouldn’t be any during his term. Secondly, if a $300 million tax increase is supposed to help balance the budget, you’ve got some HUGE problems. 

Inflation is at a 42 year high, education is in the toilet, cops are stretched thin as crime is out of control, and city resources are being drained because Chicago along with Illinois declared themselves a sanctuary state/city with an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants now living in the state.

One major immigrant shelter is being shut down and is supposed to “merge” with current homeless shelters. However, that doesn’t in any way shape or form alleviate the cost overruns facing the city because of the influx of illegal immigrants. Food, shelter, crime, medical issues and more are costing Chicago millions each year. Governor Pritzker is vowing to roadblock any deportations, even if it’s known criminals. 

Send him as many of them as we can. https://t.co/F8iwf8dlS6

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 14, 2024

Illegal immigration is a drain on city/county/state resources – all across the board. Yet, Johnson thought a property tax hike would solve the billion dollar deficit problem, due in part to illegal immigration, that Chicago has? By the way, whatever happened to those yurts?

Perhaps the Mayor had better take a closer look at the budget to figure out where all the money is going. 

The removal of the tax hike will force Mayor Brandon Johnson to make hard decisions on other ways to generate more revenue or where to make cuts to city services.

The hike would have boosted taxes by 4.8% — raising them, for example, by $318 on a $350,000 Chicago home.

I’m pretty sure there’s a number of folks across Chicago who can’t afford a 5% property tax hike, no matter what the value of their home is. This would definitely hit seniors and low to middle-income earners hard. So, is the Mayor collaborating with city aldermen on the budget? It looks like the answer is NOPE!

The mayor’s allies say the meeting was just a political stunt to make the mayor look bad, while several alders have complained that Johnson, unlike previous mayors, has shut them out of budget talks.

The squabbles and infighting between the mayor and the council led veteran Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) to remark: “I’ve never seen it this bad.”

Meanwhile, the mayor recently called himself “the most collaborative mayor” in Chicago’s history.

“Collaborative?” A Mayor who just informed the city that the rejection of his property tax proposal is all part of “a healthy process” is a great collaborator? This from a guy whose approval rating is at 14%. Yes, you read that correctly. 

Keep in mind, property taxes in Chicago and elsewhere have ALREADY gone up. 

His Chicago property taxes on the apartment building are going from $23,000 per year to $128,000 per year.

This would force him to raise rent to $5,000 per month for a 1 bedroom apt.

🔊 pic.twitter.com/PMQ2VayWPi

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) August 25, 2024

Yet Mayor Brandon Johnson wanted to raise them even further. Is it any wonder why people are leaving Chicago? It’s not just the crime. It’s the fact that this Democrat-run city can’t figure out a way to balance a budget without penalizing Chicago citizens. 

Now there’s talk of cutting other city services or raising taxes in different ways. I would be willing to bet that there are some “city services” in the budget that only serve a very few rather than the city as a whole. Cutting those would be a good start. 

Taxing cloud services? That’s about as asinine as proposing a 35% tax hike on alcohol and a 50% tax on streaming services such as Netflix! And yes, those ideas are on the table, as is a ‘smaller’ property tax increase. 

Keep in mind, Chicago ELECTED Brandon Johnson in April 2023. They knew then he was an advocate for encouraging looting and defunding the police. They knew then that he was a hard left progressive, and that crime costs the city millions of dollars each year. And they voted for him anyway.

Will this unanimous rebuke to Johnson cause him to reflect and change his mind about raising taxes of ANY kind? I highly doubt it. 

However, it really was fun to see him get his ass handed to him in such a public manner. 

Feature Photo Credit: Brandon Johnson at meeting September 2024, public domain via Flickr, cropped and modified