Brandon Johnson became mayor in 2023 having been a former organizer and lobbyist for the Chicago Teachers Union and promising to make the “ultra-rich” pay hundreds of millions more in taxes. A group of progressive backers famously issued a report just as he was set to take office. Entitled, “First We Get the Money,” it was an exhaustive list of every levy imaginable on businesses and the affluent.

Among the report’s list of options was “Bring Chicago Home” — a proposed quadrupling of the city’s existing tax on real estate sales above $1 million in order to fund programs and organizations addressing homelessness. Johnson’s first effort at “getting the money” was wisely rejected by Chicago voters.

Since then, Chicago’s efficiencies-averse mayor has attempted to convince fellow Democrats i

See Full Page