Mayor 1% to balance the Chicago Budget on the backs of the Working Class

So Mayor Rahm Emmanuel is back at enforcing Neoliberal economic Austerity on Chicago.

Besides shutting down mental health clinics for poor people, eliminating CPS buildings used by minorities and working class families, and then giving hundreds of millions of welfare dollars to private contractors to build a casino in McCormick Place, a basketball stadium for DePaul University, and for bizzare Navy Pier upgrades like a pool-szed "Giant Civic Hot Tub"; Rahm Emmanuel has earned his moniker Mayor 1%.

Now, Rahm has proposed a novel way of balancing the budget, by squeezing more and more money from working class Chicago families and collar county residents.

Mayor 1% is counting on $120 million in fines from red-light and speed cameras and $10 million more from higher parking fines and impounded vehicle storage fees. Additionally, along with other so-called "sin" taxes, the price of cigarettes is going to go up by 75 cents, making the purchase of a pack of smokes in Chicago the most expensive in the US.

Rahm likes to brag about not raising taxes but like all neoliberals his tax hikes are firmly targeted at those who don't have his ear and aren't rubbing elbows with him. Like, all "Capitalists" in America, Mayor 1% friends make their money by getting government stooges to funnel taxpayer money to them.

Previously, Rahm gave $15 million plus of taxpayer monies to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange right after CME blackmailed Governor Quinn with ransom demand for $100 million in Corporate Welfare from the State of Illinois or else.

When Mayor 1% closed 6 of 12 mental health clinics in Chicago he did so at the behest of his owners. Rahm is a tool of the Rich and powerful. His Plutocratic owners will make huge profits from mental healthcare now that the clinics are closed and people have less options. In fact, Rahm had to give at least $500,000 in government funds to private mental healthcare immediately upon closing the 6 clinics, slashing a third off the so-called budget savings back in 2012.

Mayor 1% tax hikes are set at working class people who can't afford to rent limos and have to drive and park in the city and each day are subjected to a fine for that turn on red or a fee for parking to close to that hydrant.