Chicago's migrant buses and the Governments inability to respond to a crisis Part 7: Privatization

What is he wanted for, Sheriff?
That would be of a private nature...
A private nature? That's a public office you hold, isn't it, Sheriff? - Legends of the Fall (1994)

Housing built decades ago by the US Government
Monterey, California still occupied (2017)

So, after decades of Republicans slicing the Government sausage, Chicago, Cook and the collar counties, the State of Illinois, and the federal government don't have a reservoir of construction workers or a civilian corps of engineers to send to areas which require a quick building program of housing and infrastructure.  So, the City of Chicago has to hand out contracts to private industry.

After the debacle of the Brighton Park migrant base camp last December, I wondered how much money the City of Chicago has handed out to private construction firms to do things FDR and the Works Progress Administration determined 90 years should be done by Government directly paying people to work,

Turns out it's at least $138,000,000.  And the cost to the State of Illinois is probably Half-a-Billion.

City officials paid at least $138 million in 2023 to house, feed and care for the men, women and children sent to Chicago from the southern border, according to data published by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration.

Of the $138 million spent by city officials to care for the migrants in 2023, more than $59 million came directly from Chicago taxpayers, according to city data.

The rest came from the state and federal governments via grants that totaled $78.8 million, according to city data.

The city paid three private firms $127 million to care for the migrants, essentially outsourcing the day-to-day responsibility for managing the humanitarian crisis that defined Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first six months in office.

By mid-November, the state spent $478 million to care for the migrants, state officials said. The bulk of those funds are not tracked by city officials, or included in the city’s database.

Since August 2022, 636 buses have arrived in Chicago, carrying nearly 29,500 people, on buses sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to damage President Joe Biden’s chances for reelection and divide Democratic voters.

There are more than 14,700 migrants in 27 city shelters, with approximately 400 people waiting at police stations, O’Hare International Airport and on warming buses at the city’s designated bus “landing zone,” according to city data. The crisis has exposed deep divisions between Chicago’s Black and Latino communities and shredded the city’s social safety net.

Now, White Boomers are screaming their bigoted lead-tainted heads off about "The Migrant Crisis" and the associated costs.  But, there is no way the City of Chicago or residents or the migrants so callously sent here have received $200 Million dollars worth goods and services and it once again highlights how the Myth of Business can do it better and Government can't do anything right is grounded in the non-stop lies and propaganda of the Ronnie Raygun administration through the modern MAGA version.

And of course, white people are violently angry about the thought of the United States Government or local governments helping people.  It's the height of Entitlement because Boomers grew up in an America which was built up by government in response to the rapacious 19th century Robber Barons claiming Private Property superseded all other rights and in the face of the 1929 Republican Great Depression and refusal of Corporations to help ameliorate the crushing poverty caused by Capitalism.

The fact that FDR and the Government succeeded with Socialist programs in the 1930's has incensed Republicans for decades, the same way that LBJ's Great Society programs successes have infuriated Republicans since the 1960s.

Republicans hate America and hate you.  They have no interest in running a functional responsive government, Republicans want a Government which oppresses hundreds of millions and is owned and operated as an arm of the Rich and Powerful.

These migrant buses and planes sent to Illinois are not a cheap political stunt although they are a tawdry scheme to undermine President Biden.  What they are is a cold-blooded exploitation of poor and oppressed people, and that exactly is what the Republican Party offers their base of bigoted boomers and the world, the evil guarantee that Republicans will treat human beings as chattel and dispose of them by transportation.   The Death Camps Republicans have planned for 2025 are going to be churning though millions of people.

Addendum:

Of course, another glaring reason the City of Chicago doesn't have the money to pay people directly to help house, clothe, or fed migrants treated like garbage by Republicans is the non-stop expenditure the City incurs due to Police misconduct, brutality, abuse, and crimes.  Chicago paid out $198,000,000 in 2019, 2020, and 2021 for Chicago Police misconduct.