Democrats have picked Chicago to host their 2024 convention. The choice of what McDonald’s CEO has called a “city in crisis” is an invitation to mockery, but really, I think they made an excellent decision.
In the lead-up to the announcement, Democrats suggested the convention site would symbolize the future of their party. It is beyond sobering, but also true, that Chicago does indeed represent the future of Democrat-led cities, states and — worse — even the country. Both the city and the state are entirely run by Democrats; they occupy the mayor’s office, the governor’s mansion and have a majority in both houses of the legislature. By every normal measure, the city and the state are disasters — a reminder that liberal policies aimed at helping the downtrodden don’t work and indeed hurt most the people that Democrats profess to care about.
Let’s look at some facts about the Windy City.
Chicago has been the country’s slowest growing city since 2000; since 1950, it has lost 1 million people. A recent report from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on the city’s population shift highlights “the steady outflow of working-class residents” in recent years, a fact that should embarrass Joe Biden’s party.
Why are people leaving?
First, crime. Chicago has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, and one of the highest rates of violent crime. In some neighborhoods, the homicide rate is higher than in Tijuana, Mexico — the world’s most violent city.
Many cities have blamed a spike in crime on the pandemic. But Chicago’s problems predated the virus.
It’s not just that Chicago has a murder problem; it is also overwhelmed by other kinds of crime. Michigan Avenue’s high-end stores deal with so many robberies they worry shoppers might avoid them altogether.
People have also abandoned the Windy City because the schools are terrible. A shocking recent report showed that in dozens of schools, not one student was considered proficient at reading or math. Not one! Once again, though the pandemic made matters worse, the failures of Chicago’s schools existed long before COVID.
And then there’s the cost of living, which in Chicago is 20 percent higher than the national average. Not only is housing 52 percent more expensive than in the country overall, transportation is 24 percent higher. Moreover, last year a WalletHub report proclaimed Chicago residents’ local tax burden the highest in the county, almost 39 percent above the national average.
Chicago has not only lost people in recent decades, it has also lost businesses. Citadel, Boeing and Caterpillar fled the city just in 2022. Citadel moved to Florida after one of its employees was robbed at gunpoint and another assaulted as he sat in his car. After a century in Illinois, Caterpillar moved to Texas, where the cost of living is about one-quarter less than in Chicago. The CEO had warned a decade earlier that the state’s fiscal problems would lead to rising taxes and business costs, eventually making it impossible to stay.
The CEO of McDonalds, an iconic member of Chicago’s business community for over 50 years, last year warned a local business group that rising crime could eventually drive the company to move elsewhere, saying, “All of us, every single person in this room has seen the corrosive effect that crime can have on the city, its psyche, and its citizens.”
Chris Kempczinski further declared, “Make no mistake … McDonald’s commitment to Chicago is not corporate altruism. It’s not open-ended. It’s not unconditional.” He added, “It’s more difficult for me to recruit a new employee to McDonald’s, to join us in Chicago, than it was in the past.”
Soaring crime is not the only thing driving businesses out of Chicago. Illinois has been hostile to companies for some time, bleeding corporations dry by raising taxes and other costs. The state’s ranking in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index dropped 13 spots between 2017 and 2022, the second-biggest decline in the nation.
To make matters worse, last fall voters approved Amendment 1, which one policy group described as a “property tax hike disguised as a “workers’ rights amendment” that would “worsen Illinois’ business climate by keeping commercial property taxes on the rise.” The Democrat initiative, according to Illinois Policy, will “empower government unions to make significantly greater demands, which taxpayers would be forced to fund just as they’ve been saddled with those government unions’ $313 billion pension debt.”
Indeed, like other Democrat-run cities, public employee unions like the teachers’ unions, have created massive fiscal headaches by demanding ever-higher pay and benefits, while offering no concessions in return.
It is not fair to pick on Chicago, when New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other, smaller Democrat cities share most of the same self-imposed problems and equally bleak futures. There are common themes: liberal initiatives like eliminating cash bail that are supposed to provide “justice” to criminals make crime worse, especially in minority neighborhoods. Politicians elected with the help of unions that provide cash and turnout are then beholden to those groups, and must pony up endless taxpayer dollars to feed the machine. Clobbering businesses with taxes and expensive labor rules to pay for those union demands drives employers away; eventually the population, needing jobs, will follow.
This isn’t rocket science, but if you don’t educate your citizens, they are not well equipped to tell fact from fantasy, and they will fall for the same empty promises over and over again. The recent mayor’s race in Chicago was tragic; having just dumped Lori Lightfoot, a progressive mayor who utterly failed the city, voters picked even more liberal Brandon Johnson to replace her. This will not go well.
Democrats would be wise to consider what is ruining our great cities. At their convention, they will have a bird’s-eye view.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.