This post by Ken Previti directed me to a hugely important story that I had missed.
David Sirota of Pando and Ben Joravsky of The Chicago Reader unearthed a story of money, politics , and greed that is startling.
The headline is that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s top donor bought a big bloc of stock in Marriott hotels shortly before Marriott won a very lucrative contract from the city. The deeper story is about the web of money and contracts that makes buddies of all the movers and shakers in Chicago. This is a city that claimed it had to close 50 public schools and that pensions were too much to bear.
Yet Chicago has a program called TIF (Tax Increment Financing) that allows the mayor to spend vast amounts of money: “As previously reported by Pando and the Reader, TIF is a program in which Chicago annually diverts roughly $500 million in property taxes–paid in the name of schools, parks, police, etc.–into bank accounts largely controlled by the mayor. The money is supposed to be used to subsidize development in blighted communities that are so poor they would receive no development—but for the TIF.”
This, Emanuel was able to award a coveted contract to Marriott. “After all, the company will be running one of America’s largest hotels next to America’s largest convention center – and doing so with massive taxpayer subsidies, but without having to pay to construct the hotel and without having to pay property taxes.”
“Keep in mind–TIFs divert property tax dollars from public schools that are so dead broke many of them can’t afford to buy basic supplies, like toilet paper. Moreover, the mayor is earmarking money to build the Marriott at the very moment he says he has to jack up property taxes and cut payments to pensioners because the city can’t afford to make good on its pension obligations.
“In short, the city claims it doesn’t have money for its school children or retirees, but it somehow has plenty of cash to enrich a hotel corporation – one that just so happens to be part owned by the hedge fund of the mayor’s largest contributors.”
So is this a story about schools? Yes, indeed. When a city closes public schools because it has a deficit but gives generously to finance a luxury hotel that won’t have to pay taxes, this is a story about public officials who don’t care about schools, education, or children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s a bastardization of trickle down economics. Everybody at the top makes piles of money to buy more influence. The only people who pay taxes are the ones who get jobs on the project who have no influence.
I don’t know about “bastardization”. I think it’s the essence of what trickle down economics is.
😧
Surely the writers must have gotten their facts wrong. “Everyone knows” that there is no money for well-resourced neighborhood public schools.
Or anything public like libraries and mental health programs and police & fire and, well, the list just goes on and on.
What’s that? A charter chain wants to open outlets in a city? Well, there must be gobs and gobs of money lying around somewhere…
Can you spell D-I-S-C-O-N-N-E-C-T between words and deeds?
The common core [yes, lowercase] of the charterite/privatization movement as captured in a prescient comment by an old dead Greek guy:
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
😎
Is there no person or organization in the city of Chicago willing to challenge Chicago’s own ‘Boss’ Tweed?
Thank goodness there are still papers like the Reader in big cities…cause the Trib sure didn’t cover this story!
But we also need to remember Rahm, Obama and Arne are all Chicago buddies, so none of this should come as any surprise (at least not to anyone In Illinois…the rest of the country is just getting a taste of what real Chicago politics is like)
Good point. When Fox News was wasting our time chasing down stories about Obama’s relation to Bill Ayers, it would have actually performed a public service by investigating the ties between Obama and Rahm. Their friendship says a lot about the kind of man and politician Obama really is.
Bernie Sanders in 2016!
Good papers are insufficient if good people do not act.
Chicago Public School budget this year: $5.1 billion
Total student population: just over 400,000.
Amount spent per pupil: $12,750.
And some schools can’t afford toilet paper? Please.
Tell ya what, WT, why don’t you track down exactly where that money goes? It’s all “public record”, after all. Why don’t you tell us how much is spent in the central office and how much actually reaches the classroom? Citations, please. Thanks.
Seriously, WT? It is really naive to think an average figure means that that amount is actually spent on each student much less to think that you can divide their entire budget by the number students and think that that represents the amount spent on students.
Exactly, brilliant folks, if $12,750 isn’t enough, then something (i.e., at the admin level) must be happening before the money gets to the student level.
Which means, if you use your head, that the problem here isn’t a lack of money. There’s plenty of money floating around. The problem is a lack of competent administration. Which then means, to anyone smarter than a skunk, that the answer isn’t to give the (completely incompetent) Chicago school system more money. The answer is to get rid of administrative incompetence.
Why does this expose not surprise me? As always, the best government money can buy.
I nominate Rahm Emanuel for the Hall of Sleaze.
Seconded.
Here’s a suggestion for the inscription on his plaque (thanks to Mark Twain): “When politics enter into municipal government, nothing resulting therefrom in the way of crimes and infamies is then incredible. It actually enables one to accept and believe the impossible.”
damn, that’s a real efficacious response.
I guess if the money had been funneled into the coffers of the Pritzger (Hyatt Hotels) family who gave Obama his start and who drive much of the reform in Chicago, that would have been too obvious.
Oops. Pritzker. As in Obama’s new Commerce Secretary.
The destruction and pain caused by Rahm Emaunel (D) in Chicago is engaged in the same mega-corruption that Chris Christie (R) in New Jersey is guilty of. (Same playbook – same script.)
Corruption has always been around. The immense amounts of money and the immense degrees of abuse heaped upon children, parents, teachers, etc. are nearly incredible. This surpasses anything in American history.
Thank you and all who keep fighting the good fight. Democracy and fairness are at stake.
One more indication that the rainmakers know no political party. Democrat Rahm gives a free ride to the Marriott, building them a hotel with taxpayers money. Republican Willard Mitt Romney was named for J. Willard Marriott, founder of the hotel chain. Sort of like DFER, it doesn’t really matter what the party affiliation appears to be. All that matters is the money – it’s called bi-partisanship.