Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Emanuel and "tough" decisions

At last night's first community meeting around the city budget, Mayor Emanuel once again warned residents really "tough" decisions were going to have to be made to balance the budget.

Whenever I hear words like "tough decisions" or "shared sacrifice" or "everybody's got skin in the game" I immediately wonder if those include the rich and making the rich, large corporations, banking and investment firms pay even their "fair share" of taxes. Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I sincerely doubt it.

The "tough" decisions invariably means the working class of the city must keep making all the "sacrifices."

Taxing the rich, ending the TIF slush funds to private developers and the well connected, imposing a Financial Transaction Tax on the Mercantile Exchange or an emergency tax on the largest of the non-profits, banks, hedge funds and corporations and revoking the disastrous parking meter deal are among those subjects that are sacred cows, not to be discussed, off the table. Instead they are the "tough" decisions that needs to be taken.

No comments:

Post a Comment