CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

The state needs to eliminate public employee benefit protection. How absurd that we can never change an employee benefit from the day they are hired? Unfortunately Pritzker and Madigan will never do that.

Totally agree on this. Unfortunately, Rauner hasn't mentioned a constitutional amendment in his four years. The only pension idea he has is supporting Cullerton's plan.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Totally agree on this. Unfortunately, Rauner hasn't mentioned a constitutional amendment in his four years. The only pension idea he has is supporting Cullerton's plan.

Well, we all know that it would be impossible to amend the Constitution.

Our only hope is that Madigan decides, 2 months before retiring, to use the last of his power to make it happen—a rare and final gesture of goodwill to the State which he spent half a century fucking over.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Well, we all know that it would be impossible to amend the Constitution.

Rauner spent 2 years pushing right-to-work legislation that had even less of a chance. He could have at least pushed a campaign to get the pension amendment on the ballot as a provisional question. He did next to nothing on pensions and has provided no plan in 4 years.

[Vlajos]

^ All true, but he's still better than JB and Madigan.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

Rauner spent 2 years pushing right-to-work legislation that had even less of a chance. He could have at least pushed a campaign to get the pension amendment on the ballot as a provisional question. He did next to nothing on pensions and has provided no plan in 4 years.

Rauner never had Madigan's power.

I'm not even sure why people blame Rauner for not having Madigan's grip on Government. That's essentially what Rauner is being blamed for, and it's silly.

Madigan has been running a corrupt machine for 40 years. What do you expect even the most well meaning Republican to do within a mere 4 years?

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Rauner never had Madigan's power.

I'm not even sure why people blame Rauner for not having Madigan's grip on Government. That's essentially what Rauner is being blamed for, and it's silly.

This is a strawman argument as nobody is blaming Rauner for not having Madigan's power. People are (rightfully) blaming him for spending half of his term pushing right-to-work laws that never had a chance of happening in Illinois. He could have spent that time on more productive reforms, but he didn't. He owns that and it has nothing to do with Madigan.

Is the re-election argument, "I have no power to get anything done, so you should re-elect me"? That isn't really compelling.

I'll ask again, after four years what is Rauner's pension plan (bonus points for answering without using the word "Madigan")?

Edit to add: JB should absolutely release his proposed tax rates, but he won't give Rauner that ammunition.

[the urban politician]

I think it's pretty obvious that Rauner's pension plan involved insolvency and something akin to municipal bankruptcy. Last I checked I'm not Rauner's official spokesman so I'm not sure why you're asking me. But his actions for the past 4 years speak to that. And I don't think that's too bad of a plan given how corrupt and immune to reform the current system is

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

Name J.B.'s most significant accomplishment.

Is it inheriting billions?

I would say avoiding taxes.

Or the Panama Papers leak:

Or removing toilets to save $230,000 in property taxes every year:

I would say 1871, where he provided seed capital and backed the original lease. It has been a driving force in the tech boom Chicago has seen over the past 5 years.

On your points, inheriting money isn't really something for which you can blame him. The other three points are all variations of the same point, tax avoidance. I don't like these schemes at all, but it isn't all that different from Rauner getting paid on carried interest (lower income tax rates and no social security or medicare tax payments) or clouting his kid into Walter Payton Prep (when he lived in the suburbs). Those both negatively impact taxpayers.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

The State provides $2.3M every year of taxpayer dollars to fund 1871. It's a 501(c)(3).

Let's be generous and assume Pritzker donated $1.5M in 2013 (provide better data if you have it). That's $1,500,000 out of his $3,500,000,000 net worth.

So J.B. donated 0.004% of his father's money. That's his biggest accomplishment?

Not sure if you are trolling, but JB is known to be the main driving force behind the idea and implementation of 1871, along with I2A Fund, the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center and Built in Chicago. I get that you don't like the guy, but he didn't just donate money for these things, he has helped bring them into existence.

If you want to talk about him throwing around inherited money, you could bring up his venture capital fund New World Ventures. I'm not sure how investing in local tech companies is somehow a bad thing because you disagree with him politically, but it is at least an honest criticism.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by Stockerzzz

Please provide some sources on how he was more involved than donating money. I'm excited to understand the work he put in that didn't involve giving money in exchange for a "founder" / "director" title.

Matt Moog's post in 2012 announcing the opening of 1871:

I got involved with 1871 about seven months ago when J.B. Pritzker asked me to chair the effort. The idea for a physical space to bring together the technology community had been talked about for a long time, and J.B. decided it was about time we did something about it. So with his encouragement and leadership we started talking about it to anyone who would listen and holding group sessions to surface all points of view. After hundreds of discussions with entrepreneurs, developers, designers, civic organizations, educational institutions, and investors, we were convinced there was a significant need. We started lining up the support that would be needed to pull this off. J.B. provided the seed capital and backed the lease. The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center will manage 1871, and they will be working with entrepreneurs, corporate sponsors and educational partners to bring the center to life. But the real long term success of 1871 will come from all of you helping to support and promote each other.

[the urban politician]

^ Lol

So basically JB provided Dad's money and said "make it so"

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Lol

So basically JB provided Dad's money and said "make it so"

I think the post was pretty clear on the leadership role he took, but if that's how you see it, so be it. Unfortunately, the choice is between JB and Bruce Rauner. I don't get a dream candidate to choose.

This is how I see it:
Has Rauner created anything similar to 1871?
What are his biggest job creating accomplishments in the private or public sector?
Has JB done anything as negative as the Rauner admin's response to the Quincy disaster?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

This is how I see it:
Has Rauner created anything similar to 1871?
What are his biggest job creating accomplishments in the private or public sector?
Has JB done anything as negative as the Rauner admin's response to the Quincy disaster?

^ That's how you see it, but here is how I see it:

1. What is the role of Government?
2. Is Government getting too corrupt and too involved in our lives?
3. Is Illinois' Government too corrupt and are too many people in Illinois Government maintaining an income stream off of the taxpayer?

So fine, it's all good that JB is behind 1871 and so forth. As a benevolent billionaire I think he should stay in the private sector and fund his favorite pet projects.

But I will not vote for anyone who doesn't see excess tax, waste, and corruption as a HUGE problem in our State. If you won't even discuss those items, you won't get my vote. Those are my priorities.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ That's how you see it, but here is how I see it:

1. What is the role of Government?
2. Is Government getting too corrupt and too involved in our lives?
3. Is Illinois' Government too corrupt and are too many people in Illinois Government maintaining an income stream off of the taxpayer?

So fine, it's all good that JB is behind 1871 and so forth. As a benevolent billionaire I think he should stay in the private sector and fund his favorite pet projects.

But I will not vote for anyone who doesn't see excess tax, waste, and corruption as a HUGE problem in our State. If you won't even discuss those items, you won't get my vote. Those are my priorities.

This is a completely fair interpretation, not very different from my own views and the main reason I voted for Rauner 4 years ago.

I think where we diverge is that I haven't seen Rauner actually achieve anything regarding cutting taxes (they went up), waste (amount of unpaid bills, and the interest on them exploded) or corruption (appointed Dunkin to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District board).

I loved Rauner's idea on eliminating local taxing (government) bodies. A little progress has been made on this topic, but mostly by local leaders and Rauner has been mostly silent. This is where he lost me. He spent years fighting an un-winnable right-to-work battle, when he could have tried different routes or switched priorities. In the end, my taxes still went up.

It seems like you view JB as the "big government" candidate, which is fair criticism. On the flip side, he does support legalized marijuana and sports betting which would be less government in our daily lives. In these instances, Rauner prefers the status quo of government telling me what I can and can't do. To me, that is more of a "big government" problem than trying to provide more affordable healthcare options to citizens.

Edit to add: One thing all of this glosses over is the Rauner administration's role in the legionnaires disaster at the Quincy Veteran's home. The Governor's office under-responded to the outbreak and lied to voters and families about it later. This could be considered a disqualifying lack of leadership in-and-of itself.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Lol

So basically JB provided Dad's money and said "make it so"

JB was very hands on. Talk to anyone you know in tech who has any ties at all to companies started at 1871, especially the first few years, and you will hear about it. I worked for a short time at a company started at 1871 in the first few years and the company CEO was a huge fan of JB even before he announced running for governor.

But even if all he did was make introductions, don't discount the value of that. Getting the right people together in a room may not seem like rocket science, but it can be the difference between success and failure.

[Skyguy_7]

^ Roll the dice and buy now.

I’d love nothing more than Amazon to select Chicago, but deep down, I believe Illinois does not deserve this. The worst-run state in the union, where every pour soul is tagged with $49,000 in debt, with businesses and families fleeing at record pace, cannot possibly/ feasibly be chosen as home to such an economic powerhouse.

Or maybe Bezos wants to try to save us.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Maybe Rahm does know something we don't and that influenced his decision to not seek reelection. Maybe he is planning on the ultimate mic drop of besting every other city in the country in the fight for the biggest corporate prize in history and leave office like 6 months later. That might set him up well for a presidential bid.

If Chicago is still getting visits from Amazon that bodes pretty well at this point in the process. They are supposed to announce by year end and there is only 3 months of 2018 left. As I've said from the beginning, Chicago does not need Amazon, but Amazon would be total fools given their list of preferences to land anywhere but like Chicago or Philly or somewhere similarly large and affordable.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

^ Roll the dice and buy now.

I’d love nothing more than Amazon to select Chicago, but deep down, I believe Illinois does not deserve this. The worst-run state in the union, where every pour soul is tagged with $49,000 in debt, with businesses and families fleeing at record pace, cannot possibly/ feasibly be chosen as home to such an economic powerhouse.

Or maybe Bezos wants to try to save us.

Debatable - and this is not how companies think. If they can get the talent they need, retain it and be able to replace whoever leaves while being able to deal with taxes and whatever, then that's what they care about. If what you say mattered as much as you believe, then there wouldn't be Salesforce looking to hire 5000 people in Chicago, Google wouldn't be expanding a lot and neither would Facebook just to name a few companies. There's many others. Say what you will, but the Chicago area still has the 3rd highest GDP in the country, the 2nd most amount of Fortune 500 HQ of any MSA (NYC is #1), and the 2nd most amount of largest private corporation HQ of any MSA (NYC is #1)....and the 3rd largest labor force with proven tens of thousands of people relocating to the area every single year (I'm not talking about net flow - i'm just talking about inflow). If it mattered as much as a lot of people thought, then the amount of these types of businesses in the metro area wouldn't have increased in the last handful of years. Yes, it actually increased.

And I'm not saying Illinois isn't in shit, but if it truly mattered as much as you think, then you'd be seeing a lot more companies moving out of Chicago and Illinois. This isn't even happening - actually the reverse is happening.

By the way, just so we are wondering - the amount of 6+ figure earning households in the city of Chicago alone has increased by 94,797 between 2010 and 2017 (SOURCE: US Census ACS 1 year, Table B19001). In that same time, the amount of households in the city increased by only 33,119 (i.e. the growth of 6+ figure households outpaced the increase of total households by nearly 3-to-1). Meanwhile, Dallas and Houston COMBINED increased their 6 figure households by 106,285 while having a total household increase of 140,781. In other words, Houston and Dallas combined only outgained Chicago's 6 figure household increase by 11,488 households despite outgaining Chicago in total households in the same period by 107,662 households (i.e. 4.25X gain for total households).

This didn't happen by accident - and it's not an accident that Chicago has the 3rd largest gain in 6+ figure earning households from 2010 to 2017 (NYC and LA are #1 and #2) of any city 250K+ population despite having nearly stagnant overall population. It's also not an accident that in July 2018, the amount of people employed in Chicago was about the same as it was for most months in 2000, even though the city in 2000 had ~200,000 more people total than 2017/2018 (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics LAUS). The city did not also surge to be the #1 most college educated city by percentage in the last few years of the top 5 most populous cities (yes, even more than NYC) by accident coupled with the data above. Also interesting is that August 2018 unemployment percentage for the state of Illinois is tied for the lowest rate of any month since January 1976 (tied with February 1999 as lowest in that 42.5 year period).

This is happening because more and more higher paying white collar jobs are in Chicago now than ever before. Companies care less about what you are stating than you probably realize - they might care a little bit, but there's more important things to care about. Perhaps they end up being a factor with why another area gets chosen instead of Chicago, but other factors will work more favorably and balance it out. Chicago has the 3rd highest GDP with the 3rd largest labor force in the entire country with one of the most varied economies. If this really mattered, you wouldn't be seeing the trend like you are seeing from the data I have presented above, and you'd see more and more companies leaving or downsizing. This isn't happening and I don't think a big company like Amazon is reading a bunch of Op Ed articles to form their opinions about where they should invest a few billion dollars. They're more complicated than this. You can say this about many other companies - including many who have decided to move to Chicago or expand their base of operations in Chicago despite all the news about the Illinois/Chicago doom going on.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Yeah, even the massive property tax increases aren't as devastating as people catastrophize about. Why? Because our taxes really aren't all that high to begin with unless you are in the suburbs which, as we have discussed ad nauseum, are on the verge of total collapse (this one goes out to you TUP!). For example, my taxes on a six unit building have gone from $3800 to $4800 in three years. That's more than a 25% increase, but it only amounts to $1000 less in my pocket a year, that's less than $100 a month I have to eat or pass on to tenants. Considering I've doubled the rent roll (2 Beds are still only $800 a month after that) since I bought it, it's not really a big deal. Same goes for most of my properties, double digit increases in taxes, but because taxes in the city are so low to begin with it doesn't matter.

I mean I've seen properties worth over $1 million that pay less than $6000 a year in taxes on. In what other city in the US is that a thing? My parents pay like $12,000 a year in Wisconsin for a single family home in a small town that's maybe worth $400k at the very very high end. It's not even in the same realm as what we pay down here.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Yeah, even the massive property tax increases aren't as devastating as people catastrophize about. Why? Because our taxes really aren't all that high to begin with unless you are in the suburbs which, as we have discussed ad nauseum, are on the verge of total collapse (this one goes out to you TUP!). For example, my taxes on a six unit building have gone from $3800 to $4800 in three years. That's more than a 25% increase, but it only amounts to $1000 less in my pocket a year, that's less than $100 a month I have to eat or pass on to tenants. Considering I've doubled the rent roll (2 Beds are still only $800 a month after that) since I bought it, it's not really a big deal. Same goes for most of my properties, double digit increases in taxes, but because taxes in the city are so low to begin with it doesn't matter.

I mean I've seen properties worth over $1 million that pay less than $6000 a year in taxes on. In what other city in the US is that a thing? My parents pay like $12,000 a year in Wisconsin for a single family home in a small town that's maybe worth $400k at the very very high end. It's not even in the same realm as what we pay down here.

As I've lived in other states - not just Illinois (including currently - NYC) one thing I noticed while living in Chicago and even reading articles, comments online, etc is that people in Illinois seem to live in a bubble and think whatever they have is literally the worst of the worst. I honestly don't get it. I can't tell you how many people bitched to me about their income taxes only to shut them up after showing them what I have to pay in NYC (i.e. double or more of what you pay in Illinois % wise). I am not going to say that things don't suck but there's this annoying tone to so many articles I read still from places like Crains and the Tribune ("What we're going through is worse than everyone else!" in an ignorant way).