Chicago Tribune warns Mayor Johnson’s tax plans will scare businesses away

The Chicago Tribune warned on Thursday that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s progressive policy proposals may scare businesses away from the already struggling city.

As officials anticipate a $1.2 billion deficit, Johnson spoke to reporters on Tuesday about his plans to fix the local economy, particularly how the “billionaires and ultra-rich” can have “more skin in the game.”

“Everything has to be on the table. Everything has to be on the table,” Johnson said of his plans. The Chicago Tribune, which has criticized Johnson before, warned this does not bode well for the local economy. 

In a piece headlined, “Mayor Johnson offers multiple ideas to scare businesses out of Chicago,” the newspaper’s editorial board outlined how “Halloween comes early with Johnson’s ‘progressive revenue’ specifics.”

MAYOR JOHNSON WARNS TRUMP AGAINST DEPLOYING FEDERAL TROOPS FOR IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN CHICAGO

“Among the possibilities the mayor said ‘have to be on the table’: reviving the corporate head tax; imposing a thinly disguised corporate income tax; and ‘asking’ universities, endowments and other large-scale nonprofits to pay substantial sums in lieu of the property taxes from which they are shielded,” The Tribune said.

The editorial board singled out the head tax as a particularly disastrous policy. The policy, which “Mayor Rahm Emanuel rightly killed in 2014,” is one where businesses are taxed based on how many employees they have. The board argued such a policy “is a disincentive to hire people,” particularly amid the emerges of new technologies.

“With the rise in artificial intelligence, companies nationwide already are laying off workers who are performing functions corporate leaders believe AI can do instead. If Johnson truly wants to jump-start AI-induced white-collar employment losses in Chicago, there are few more effective ways than bringing back the head tax,” The Tribune warned.

But beyond ill-advised policy, the outlet highlighted one proposal it claims claim Johnson does not even have the right to enforce.

“That leaves a more pernicious proposal pushed by the nonprofit Institute for the Public Good, which has a representative on the mayor’s working group,” The Tribune reported. “Based on a tax Seattle approved several years ago, that group has floated an ‘excise tax’ on payrolls for those making $200,000 or more (including stock options and various forms of noncash compensation) — meant to substitute for a corporate income tax that Chicago doesn’t have the legal authority to impose.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

The piece warned that across the multiple policies he proposed, “By once again focusing only on economically destructive taxes that we’re guessing won’t get far with skittish aldermen afraid to tie their political futures to a deeply unpopular mayor, Johnson risks a reprise of last year’s eleventh-hour budget crisis.”

Another aspect pointed out by the Chicago Tribune is that Johnson laid out these and other policy proposals long before his working group will discuss them at an upcoming meeting in August, a key detail which the Tribune suggested speaks volumes about his leadership.

“By saying he’s on board with several highly controversial tax proposals before his group even weighs in, Johnson now has confirmed, at least in the minds of his numerous skeptics, that the exercise always was little more than window dressing for an administration bent on doing what it has wanted to do from the start — soak the ‘rich’ in order to bankroll an ever-growing government apparatus,” The Tribune wrote.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s office and did not receive an immediate reply.