You Can’t Throw the Bums Out if You’ve Voted With Your Feet
Brandon Johnson’s victory in Chicago shows the city has lost the political base for sensible reforms.
Allysia Finley, WSJ
April 9, 2023 3:12 pm ET
There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation, as Adam Smith once observed. The same could be said of America’s big Democratic-run cities. Brandon Johnson’s victory in last week’s Chicago mayoral race is a reminder that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse.
Chicago is functionally bankrupt. Its high crime and taxes are driving away businesses like Citadel, Boeing and Tyson Foods. Despite some of the highest property taxes in the country, its pension funds are in a death spiral. Scads of people are moving out. A net 175,000 people left Cook County between 2020 and 2022.
Mr. Johnson’s margin of victory was about 20,000 votes. How many of the city’s expats would have voted for moderate reformer Paul Vallas? Therein lies an enormous problem for Chicago and other big cities: Left-wing policies are driving away the types of voters and businesses needed for a course correction.
Between 2020 and 2022, about 71,000 people on net left San Francisco—nearly 10% of its population. During the same period some 503,000 moved out of New York City—about four times the population of Topeka, Kan. High levels of out-migration amount to a political as well as economic brain drain. Cities are losing the voters who keep their leaders from going off the rails.
America’s big cities are increasingly steered by the interests of government unions and those who depend on the government dole. Unlike businesses, cities can’t liquidate. Politicians can always raise more money from taxpayers to pay off their public-union friends and buy votes from the government-dependent class, which nowadays includes outfits that contract with cities to provide social services.
Witness Mr. Johnson, who is pitching a monthly $4 per employee tax on large companies that have at least half of their operations in Chicago, a $1 or $2 tax on every securities-trading contract, higher taxes on hotels, a “mansion tax” on transfers of real estate valued at more than $1 million; and “user fees on high-end commercial districts frequented by the wealthy, suburbanites, tourists and business travelers.” All of this is sure to drive away more businesses and taxpayers, which will result in less revenue and fuel a political impetus to raise taxes even more.
Consider what has happened in San Francisco since voters in 2018 approved a gross-receipts and payroll tax on businesses to fund homeless housing and programs. The measure has raised much less revenue than was projected because businesses have left the city or let their employees work remotely. The streets are as filthy and unsafe as ever. Now the city Controller’s Office forecasts a $780 million deficit over the next two years because of population flight.
Last week’s fatal stabbing of 43-year-old tech executive Bob Lee in a relatively nice part of the city drew national attention, though such grisly crimes are hardly novel in the Bay Area. “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately,” Elon Musk tweeted. The same is true of other big cities like New York and Chicago.
San Francisco voters grew so disgusted with the spiraling public disorder that they recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin last year. Eric Adams was elected mayor of New York in 2021 on a pledge to clean up the streets and bring back businesses. But voting out the local bums can do only so much, since many quality-of-life problems stem from state policies.
California’s Proposition 47 in 2014 downgraded many felonies to misdemeanors, making it harder to keep criminals behind bars. New York’s bail law likewise hamstrings local law enforcement. Pensions contractually guaranteed by state courts make it hard for cities to retain cops over 50, who are usually eligible to retire. Police departments are struggling to replace them.
Young people don’t want to join law enforcement for political reasons, and many would fail a drug test. As an act of public philanthropy, crypto tycoon Chris Larsen has spent $600,000 on a campaign to recruit young people to the San Francisco police force.
While America’s big cities may be reliving the crime and economic malaise of the 1970s, their problems today will be harder to solve. The shift to remote work during the pandemic has made workers and businesses more mobile, shrinking the tax base and the political base for reformers like Mr. Vallas.
Democratic statehouses have also moved left and contribute as much to cities’ problem as local elected officials. A state financial control board helped turn New York around following its flirtation with bankruptcy during the ’70s. But will the incorrigible tax-and-spending addicts in Springfield impose discipline in Chicago?
Public unions, and especially the teachers unions, have augmented their control of the Democratic Party and formed an unholy alliance with the woke left. The result: less-informed citizens who see the ruin around them and vote for more of the same.
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