Summary
➡ The mayor of Chicago has decided to increase property taxes to cover the city’s budget gap, a decision that has upset many homeowners, especially in the Pilsen neighborhood. Residents, already dealing with previous tax hikes, are debating whether they can afford to stay. The mayor’s 2025 budget announcement includes an estimated 4% tax increase for homeowners, leading to widespread frustration and anger. Despite the backlash, the mayor insists that the increase is necessary to pay the city’s bills and avoid leaving a legacy of debt for the next generation.
➡ The text discusses the financial challenges faced by cities, focusing on Chicago. It highlights the impact of inflation, the cost of living, and the strain of migrant crises on the city’s budget. The author criticizes the government’s financial decisions and their effects on citizens, particularly renters and property owners. The text also touches on the broader implications of these issues on society and spirituality.
➡ The speaker is challenging others, including pastors, political candidates, and business associates, to a debate or confrontation. They are confident in their ability to ‘win’ these encounters, suggesting they will leave their opponents defeated where they stand. The speaker emphasizes that it’s time to stop playing games and start revealing people’s true identities.
Transcript
Tell me that voting no matters. Don’t worry about it. We gonna get to it. So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s find out exactly what is happening, how this is affecting the people. And let’s get it straight from the source. City Council is now in session with the mayor set to propose that increase to help with the budget. Paris is breaking down the numbers for us and joining us live. Paris, what can you tell us? Well, Sylvia, the Mayor says that he grappled with decision for weeks because this was his chief campaign promise, that he would not raise property taxes.
But today he goes back on that, announcing a proposed $300 million hike in the property tax. He is addressing city as we speak. Let’s take a live look. Older people listening in. Several of them already saying they will oppose this plan because they do not want a property tax hike in the budget. Now here are some other highlights that the mayor has just revealed. Spending is up $533 million this year. And the city will also see about $131 million in TIFF surplus funds to help close that nearly billion dollar budget gap. Now, the mayor says no furlough.
No furloughs, no layoffs of city workers. So let’s go over this. I don’t even know what a TIFF surplus is. Let me look that up because sometimes I got to do my own research. I’m a C suit. A tax increment financing. Let me see. Tax increment financing or a TIFF in simple concept. Is simple in concept. TIF costs for local taxing bodies to make joint investment in the development or to redevelopment of an area. All right, how TIFF works. A tax increment is the difference between the amount of property tax revenue generated before TIFF designation and the amount of property tax revenue generated after.
Here, let me share my screen with you guys so you can see what I’m looking at. All right, See if I can get that up there for y’all. As soon as possible. Because I always like to be. When I read my Bible, I like to also have a concordance with me so I can better understand exactly what’s happening. All right? So I actually just Googled it, just pulled it up. Tax increment financing. This is from the Department of Treasury from the state of Michigan right here. But I don’t care about that. I actually want to understand what a TIFF is.
Tax increment financing. Because a lot of times they just throw this. These terms at us without us understanding it is. Is a tool local state lawmakers gave local governments in the 1980s to help communities restore their most rundown areas or jumpstart economically sluggish parts of the town. So the worst areas are seno cities. A lot of times they’re using TIFs, which is a tool that local governments now have in order to try to incentivize people. Basically gentrify the area and improve it. Okay? Like new roads, new sewers. Provide incentives to attract businesses or to help existing businesses expand without tapping into the general funds or raising taxes.
Since the federal and state governments have greatly reduced their support for economic development, TIFFs allow for municipalities to accept some of this responsibility without raising local property taxes. TIFFs help. TIFFs help local governments attract private development. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, we know what that is. All right, so what is a tax increment? Tax increment is the difference between the amount of property tax revenue generated before the TIF district designation and the amount of property tax revenue generated after the TIF designation. Okay? So let me break it down to you from a C student’s perspective.
So the expectation is, when you start to implement this, the goal is investment. So if I invest in my business, for example. All right, because they use a lot of these terms, and they make it seem more complicated than it is. If I invest in my business, well, guess what? The value of my business increases, which then generates more revenue. So as far as municipalities are concerned, because just like marriage is a business, politics is a business. So the city wants to jumpstart and raise revenue inside of this particular economically depressed zone. So what they’ll do is they’ll have investment into it, expecting for property taxes to go up, expecting for businesses to then invest in there, to expect more employees and payrolls to increase.
So they’re investing in this area, hoping that it then spends off more money. And so a tax increment is the difference between what you had and what you’re going to make considering the investment in that particular area. Let Me break it down for you a little bit more simply, right? I’m going to buy this laptop or I’m going to buy this iPad or I’m going to buy this camera with the expectation that the camera is going to make me more money. It’s an investment. I’m going to invest in this house or I’m going to bulldoze this area and then incentivize property developers to come in and make money by increasing the tax revenues.
Because as long as it’s sitting there depressed, what’s the point of having it? It’s similar to the record labels when they talk about owning your masters. Well, if your masters is not valuable or you don’t know what to do with it, what’s the point of owning it when you make it 100% of nothing? Ownership means nothing if you make no money as a result of it. If cities then have these depressed areas on the tax rolls, what’s the point of owning the land if it’s not actually generating revenue for the city itself, which would then inspire them to actually invest in an infrastructure, the sewer system, the roads, all of that.
So it has to. When people come to you when they say, well, you know, they let the hood do this or they let the hood do that, it benefits you. Nothing. It benefits the city nothing. Absolutely nothing. To invest in an area that’s going to continue to be depressed, they got to put the police over there in order to drive out the crime. You got to invest in the school system because families going to have to want to go there and then be able to put their kids inside of the school system. Right. You got to invest in a roles in the infrastructure.
To throw a bunch of money into something that doesn’t pay off is a bad business decision which they then have to justify the expenses from taking it from Peter in order to pay Paul. That’s how they start to tax the rich or they start to take resources from other communities that’s actually productive and then they throw it into the wind and they throw it at the wall and they say, we going to put more economic development into this area. It’s not beneficial for the city. And so that’s what they’re saying. $130 million in tip surplus is $533 million in increased spending.
I don’t know what that is. We need to know the details. $300 million in property tax increases. That means that you guys, you already have been paying an egregious amount of property taxes. Now you really going to get your Head cracked in Chicago already have some of the highest property taxes in the nation. But your property taxes is going to go up. But what they not telling you is that is that $533 million in increased spending a part of the migrant crisis. What are they spending it on? They not spending it in investing in police. They’re not spending it investing in infrastructure.
Y’all don’t even own your own streets. The schools is absolutely in disarray. Half of the school board didn’t quit. Let’s continue proclaiming the city the most worth. Should I run for office? I might need to run for. I might need to go city to city, state to state to state fixing your cities. Maybe I’ll even pretend to be a Democrat so you all can elect me and then I’ll implement my Republican values. Friendly city in America. Now, the mayor says if he didn’t go with this property tax hike, he would have had to lay off 17% of the city workforce.
That includes emergency personnel like police and fire. It comes, as we said, after he repeatedly promised that he was the only candidate in the race two years ago that would not raise property taxes, calling it, quote, a lazy solution. Now the mayor says he is looking at other revenue options, but many would require state approval and offered this explanation for why he went back on his promise. This is tough. It is. It is something that I grappled with for weeks and weeks. We didn’t make this decision lightly. I directed my budget team to look at all the options that closing this budget gap.
And when it came down to either mass layoffs, curbing vital city services or an increase in property taxes, I would certainly much rather tax the rich. But I did have to make the choice to increase our property tax. This guy is dumb. Dumber than a box of rocks. This is what happens when you elect a schoolteacher to run a multi billion dollar budget of a city like Chicago, the largest midwest city. It’s unfortunate. Furious. We are expecting a group of older people to have a press conference within the next hour announcing their opposition to this. And the mayor will take questions from the press.
All right, so let’s spin the block real quick and let’s see what the people are saying because we don’t just want to operate in an echo chamber. We don’t want to understand how the people are reacting to this Chicago. What up though? News about the mayor’s property tax hike did not go over well with a lot of homeowners, especially in Pilsen where residents are already dealing with back to back tax Hikes. We’re listening to you and Andrew Ramos is in Pilsen, where some homeowners are now debating whether they can even afford to stay. Nope, we could be forced out.
But Mary Gonzalez and Gary Galluzzo have called Pilsen home for decades. The married couple who are homeowners and community organizers have been helping friends and neighbors navigate the treacherous waters of property taxes in the predominantly Latino neighborhood. A trend they say spiraled out of control just two years ago as more developers moved in. But all of a sudden they discovered that this is a neighborhood that’s highly valuable and boom, the taxes shot up. People are very frustrated and there’s two options. There’s one is you run away or one is you stay and fight. The couple among the many homeowners in Pilsen who saw increases of more than 40% after a reassessment in late 2022.
Just crazy. Y’all paying more, you getting less for your money, and the criminals are running y’all out of your cribs. It’s a recipe for disaster. Eventually it’s all going to crash the neighborhood. Among the many culprits that have played a role in recent hikes. Why is an old person sitting on a block with a little old raggedy house responsible for the lot next door being turned into three candles? For Julie and Marianne Nuskill, who have lived in their two family home on 22nd place their entire lives, another tax increase is too much to bear. I don’t think it’s fair that every time the city needs money, we’re going to hit up the taxpayers.
We pay for the city. We pay very high. The frustration on the block has now boiled over into anger in wake of Mayor Johnson’s 2025 budget announcement, which calls for an estimated 4% tax increase on average for homeowners. Many who say they’re prepared to exercise every option on the table to fight back. The day I leave, I’m going to leave in a box. But no politician is ever going to force me out of Pilsen. It’s my neighborhood. We’re here longer than quite a few mayors that we’ve had. And I’m going to stay longer than this mayor.
He’ll be out before me now, earlier. Yeah, but you going to be out of money, boy. Let’s see if I can find a part where he starts to talk about the budget inside of this whole meeting. Good morning. The council will come. Let me see. Cuz I. It was people on there protesting, complaining. I might have to do a Whole live stream on Chicago again after this election, people. Come back young lady. Come back young lady. Out. Any problems? Anointed older woman Silverstein has been Funds were ignored and the city did not fulfill its obligations to working people.
And the city deferred paying principal on its debt service year after year after year after year. These short sighted decisions have had serious long term consequences. What about the migrant crisis and becoming a sanctuary city? Don’t worry, we’ll get there. Let me give you an example of one of them. Ten years ago, our city pensions were projected projected to go bankrupt. Bankrupt. In this decade from 2004 to 2014, the city did not do enough. They deposited an average of $442 million each year to the pension funds which was less than half than what was required. Because of that, we are now obligated to contribute 2.7 billion to the city’s four pension funds and we will contribute an additional 2.9 billion in the 2025 budget.
When I ran for office, I promised to tell people the truth and that I would not support programs that we did not have funds for. And I’m going to stick like the police to that promise. We will pay the city’s past and present bills and we will not leave a legacy of unpaid bills to the next generation so that by time my daughter is 18 years old and she gets to finally vote for me in the next eight years. I don’t want her to. Hey, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
We’re not just going to skip past that part. Brandon Johnson plans on being there when his daughter turns 18 and 10 years or 8 years, however long it’s going to take for her to turn 18. Brandon Johnson said I’m a be here migrant crisis. Bankruptcy, higher property taxes, no police removing shotspotter. He only been in office for a year. I don’t even know if it’s been two years. A year, two years. What he didn’t already ran this whole city into the ground. Not entirely his fault, but he’s a continuation of the people that came before him in the Democratic party.
And he said, well my daughter get here and can vote for me. Oh, I love these politicians to go to that polling booth and say dad, how come you didn’t do something today to fix the problem so she doesn’t inherit the crisis. In spite of the past mistakes, our administration though we’ve been able to fulfill the promises that I made to Chicago and deliver for the people of Chicago. And we did it in a fiscally responsible way. It turns out that you can invest in people. It turns out that you can invest into the core values of what makes us this incredible city and do it.
He trying to tap into Obama and Martin Luther King and some people just don’t got it. God did not bless you with the spirit of Obama. He did not bless you with the spirit of Obama. And listen, listen. We all got some belt tightening to do. There are some administrations that came before us and they underfunded the pension system. So, you know, we’re paying for the sins of our fathers. However. However, this I promise you, this, I promise you through this belt tightening, we’re going to make sure that our children are safe and we’re not going to leave any migrants behind and we’re going to make sure that things are good.
He doesn’t have the spirit of Obama. Listen, Obama can sell you. He could sell you a bridge in the middle of the water with no connected sides on both sides. He going to leave you with a legacy of trash, but he going to look good doing it. Brandon Johnson with the Mohawk. It don’t hit the same. Talk to the archdiocese and you know, I don’t understand. This is just a large gathering. It don’t hit the same. It’s not the same. It’s not the same. It don’t resonate. You know what I’m saying? It’s not a, it’s not a hit.
I don’t know, it’s like a game coach giving somebody the game, but then when they try to implement it, they still look like a fool and the women still diss them. It don’t hit the same. Same pitch, different pitcher. We don’t want to fill up that cup and do it responsibly. We invested in our city’s future by increasing the number of young people hired in one summer Chicago program. We hired a total young people, which is nearly an 8,000 increase since I’ve been sworn in. And through one summer Chicago, we were able to make sure that young people, young people could gain professional experience and real paying jobs and a vision for their future.
There’s one specific example though that I’m very proud of. The General labor training program. We work with the city department to do right by them. 50 of our public schools so forecasted though, that like the Johnson’s household was on Saturday. All right, that’s good little Parliament Day. Zakiya Brown is here with direction. In addition, thank you. Penalizing these individuals reigns in July of 2023 and I’m proud to say that we are still moving full steam aheadquarters at the time. After a successful summer, I got a chance development process and by thresholds who will provide behavioral health care, continue to invest in communities and empower everyone to be 2025 budget the work of Alderwoman Fuentes and the work of we need to ensure that we create systems of care to respond to the people who need to help the most.
Making it the largest social of these sections of the city that need it the most. By transitioning its operations to 100 cultural affairs and special events with an increase, we will not neglect our long term obligations. We will pay our debt and our pensions and we will continue to embrace business and economic development. Anticipating the depth of our fiscal challenge, my financial team began working on ways to lower the cost through budgetary efficiencies while also identifying ways to increase our revenues and therefore we made very smart timely adjustments to our expenditures. My budget team asked every department to cut their budget by 3%.
Not only did our departments meet that challenge, but many of them went beyond because they understand that yo this is what I want to know. Because all of this speech and junk that don’t mean nothing else. We actually want to know how our property look after the end of this. If you live in Chicago, guess what? When I described over the years what inflation is and how it affects you on a regular basis, I had people, and this was over the last couple of years, people come up on this platform when I used to have callers come up and they would try to debate me and dispute me on exactly how inflation works.
And I said that inflation is a number of things, but when you start to get into the micro details, what you’ll find is that inflation is a number that’s then set by the federal government based off of what they see. The cost of living goes up, but a lot of factors that go into it. So for example, them printing more money and then devaluing that money because we don’t have anything that backs it in the treasury anymore. It used to be backed by precious metals. Now it’s backed by our belief in it and other countries embracing it in order to have it as a backup currency for whatever is happening in the world.
Right. Them having the US dollar as a reserve currency absolutely gives it more value because again, that’s our and their belief in it. But your lifestyle, when they say hey man, inflation for American consumers based off of food, groceries, gas, rent, well that’s going to differ depending on where you live. So for example, your cost of living because they’re going to pass the cost down to you. It’s always going to go back down to the person that’s at the bottom of the totem pole. So if you’re Chicago, for example, and they say, hey, listen, we want to put a billion dollars into a migrant crisis while they’re over there saying, oh, we saved the city money.
No, you reduced the amount that you were going to give them based off of what you projected to give them because you didn’t have the money to give them in the first place. And so you’ve given close to a billion dollars. And that’s not considering police services, healthcare, it’s not considering food, all of that other type of stuff. Right. Infrastructure, the strain on the infrastructure, none of that. And so when we have migrants sleeping inside of the police station and the airport, you couldn’t even get through the airport without seeing a migrant that was sitting there saying, with no English, begging for some money, and then catching a bus into the city so they can cause havoc and terrorism upon the citizens, like the gang that came over there from Venezuela.
Your true cost of inflation is really based off of whatever it is you have to subject yourself to, such as what’s happening in Chicago. So the people in Chicago, for example, they have to pay for the cost of the migrant crisis. And so your taxes, not only is your taxes going up year after year after year, but now you got to pay an additional 4% and property taxes to support the inefficiencies and incompetency of the people that send this legislation that y’all voted in. So now your cost of living, even if you’re a renter, because guess what, they got to pass that on to the consumer.
They got to pass that on to the person that’s got to pay the rent. The landlord got to pay the mortgage company and the property taxes and insurance. Hmm. Which means the renter is also going to get that cost passed on to them because they got to be able to cover that cost. So then now you saying, oh, my God, I’m on TikTok. Rent is so high, it’s something wrong. Well, when they let the migrants in, that then they had to fund in order to replace you on the voter rolls and your job that you getting laid off from, and then they pass that cost all the way back on to you.
And now you looking at your employer because they’re also laying off because China is now building factories in Mexico to ship products over here. And you’re saying, well, no, no, no, listen, if we put tariffs on them, then it’s going to cost the average consumer an additional thousand dollars a year while you getting laid off from your high paying job that you can’t really get a raise from because they can’t justify continuing to cover the cost of your rent going up because of all of these trickle down economics. Because trickle down economics don’t just affect you when it comes to big businesses being able to pass on how much they making in profits over to the consumer.
It also happens on a reverse when you have costs such as the Ukraine war and you have Taiwan and you got this Israel and then you also got the migrant crisis and then you got us not being able to economically support and we’ve become a nation of debt instead of nation of manufacturing and building and offering good jobs. When Trump didn’t come to say, hey listen, we got to prevent these people from coming over here and gutting the American system similar to how they’ve been doing since the Clinton administration. You don’t get it because you thought that math and economics wasn’t a good subject for you to study in.
And you say I’m not good at math. Well, I guess you’re going to be good at math when it comes to paying them property taxes. Because guess what, if you don’t pay it, I’m coming to buy your property and I’m a gentrify your neighborhood. It works on both ways and you still trying to be on cold thinking that it’s going to benefit you, but you voting for your own demise when they flood this country with all of these cars straight from Mexico in order to circumvent the tariffs that Biden left in place while the Kamala Harris administration keep talking about the opportunity economy.
I’m going to give you an opportunity to give me your property now at a lower cost than they going to take it for. That way you’ll be able to have something that you can carry into your cardboard box because you will own nothing and you will like it. You will break up your family and you will like it. You will embrace reproductive rights in order to prevent yourself from actually embracing Christian values. And you will like it. All for the sake of not being, not wanting to be ostracized and not wanting to be criticized for doing the right thing.
That is literally being persecuted for righteousness sake. Man, don’t get me to preaching. Don’t get me to preaching because you know I will break it. I will bring everything back into the spiritual realm and spit it back at you in the natural. First natural, then spiritual first, natural and spiritual. I will help you to understand why your decisions in the natural is actually going against what’s best for you spiritually, which will ultimately cause your demise. Not only are you going to suffer on this earth, but you’re going to bust hell wide open as a result of it.
I’m feeling it today. I’m feeling it today. Don’t tell me that it’s not all integrated. How you think from a financial perspective and how you operate naturally don’t translate into what it is that you’re going to experience spiritually. And then you’re going to blame the white man for it. You got a black man right here that got on the agenda and is telling you to get on code. At the same time he running you out of your home and you’re not going to be able to afford it. And guess who going to save you? Guess who going to save you? You might as well get your cardboard box, move out to California where they got better weather right now and get it.
And go ahead and integrate yourself into the homeless system. I dare one of these people to want to debate me. I dare you. I dare you. It’s going to go the same way that we did it on Hartley, initiated a week and a half ago. Same way, different subject. What you want to debate? Politics, money, business, relationships, spirituality. You pick the subject, I’m going to show up, and then I’m going to teach your pastor how to really get his congregation in order so that they actually don’t bust hell wide open and they can get to the bag while they doing so.
You pick the subject, I picked the massacre site. How about that? You pick the subject, I’m gonna pick where I’m gonna bury you. Any one of y’all political candidates, spiritual teachers, women, men. You pick one. I’ll meet you at the battlefield. But get your shovel and bring it with you so I can go ahead and bury you where you lay. I’ma leave you where I find you. I’ma leave you where I find you. Any one of y’all pick your favorite preacher, pastor, man, woman, business associate. Anybody that you want to show up, pick your site. I’m going to leave you where I find you.
Who’s next up on the Price is Right? Not playing with y’all no more. It’s time out for the games. It’s time out for the games. Now we have to really gird up and start to show these people who they are. And I’m going to show you who you are. Show up to the site. I’M going to show you who you are.
[tr:tra].