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Showing Original Post only (View all)Emanuel cuts pension benefits, raises prop. taxes, subsidizes corp. donors TO THE MAX. [View all]
Nation of Change/David Sirota has a scathing article about how Rahm Emanuel has embraced old-style Chicago corruption by diverting property taxes each year into a half billion dollars a year slush fund which he as mayor controls absolutely.
Immediately after taking office, he doled out a $7 million subsidy to benefit a grocery chain, the CEO of which gave Emanuel's campaign $25,000. That's a 280% return on investment/bribe/"campaign donation".
Another $29 million subsidy went to support a new skyscraper development plan, i.e., "a very expensive corporate plaza" for the building. I know you join in me in being shocked, I say, shocked to learn that the building will house the new Chicago headquarters of a law firm whose employees have "given" Emanuel's campaign $125,000. That's a 232% return on investment/bribe/"campaign donation".
The final example is Emanuel's $55 million subsidy for a new hotel near Chicago's convention center. The investment company which owns a major stake in the construction firm gave Emanuel's campaign $31,500.
That, fellow DUers is an unbelievable 1,745% -ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE PERCENT- RETURN ON INVESTMENT/BRIBE/"CAMPAIGN DONATION"
http://www.nationofchange.org/chicago-way-1397223853
Yet, Emanuel is refusing to use the cash from that slush fund to shore up the pensions. Instead, his new pension "reform" proposal cuts pension benefits, requires higher contributions from public employees, raises property taxes but also quietly increases his slush fund.
Why, you ask, would Emanuel refuse to relinquish some of the half-billion dollars a year that is going into his slush fund? Perhaps because he has been using it to enrich Chicago's corporate class, including some of his biggest campaign donors.
Not to sound like a broken record, but again: This same thing occurs in states and cities across the country. The wealthy corporate interests who bankroll politicians have for years convinced those politicians to not make required pension payments and to instead spend the cash on taxpayer subsidies the kind that happen to go to those politicians' donors. Now that the bill for such irresponsibility is coming due, those bankrolled politicians are trying to protect the subsidies their donors so cherish by trying to balance budgets primarily through punitive measures against taxpayers and public employees.