David Sirota: Corruption in the Windy City

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Corruption in the Windy City
In times of budget crises, public employees take the fall while the corporate class prospers—and nowhere is this better exemplified than in Chicago.

BY
David Sirota


[font size="1"]The Chicago Teachers Union went on strike in September of 2012, protesting layoffs and cuts in funding. Yet a series of recent revelations show that Mayor Rahm Emanuel continues to place corporate interests above residents' basic needs. (Firedoglake )[/font]


In America, there is regular ol' corruption, and then there is Chicago Corruption, with a capital “C.” America's third largest city is so notoriously corrupt, all you have to do is say “Chicago politics” and many people instantly start making jokes about payoffs and reciting lines from “The Untouchables.”

Yet, while the Windy City's brand of corruption is extreme, it is also emblematic, as a recent spate of revelations prove.

Chicago is facing a pension shortfall for its police officers, firefighters, teachers and other municipal workers. If you've followed this story, you've probably heard that the only way Mayor Rahm Emanuel can deal with the situation is to slash those workers' pensions and to jack up property taxes on those who aren’t politically connected enough to have secured themselves special exemptions.

This same fantastical story, portraying public employees as the primary cause of budget crises, is being told across the country. Yet, in many cases, we’re only being told half the tale. We aren’t told that the pension shortfalls in many locales were created because local governments did not make their required pension contributions over many years. And perhaps even more shocking, we aren’t told that while states and cities pretend they have no money to deal with public sector pensions, many are paying giant taxpayer subsidies to corporations—subsidies that are often far larger than the pension shortfalls.

Chicago exemplifies how corruption is often at the heart of this grand bait-and-switch. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/16546/corruption_in_the_windy_city

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. I'm learning a lot about NY by reading Sirota's work re. Chicago.

Funny how that works.

K and R