Hodgetwins analyze Chicago's property tax crisis, where West Garfield Park saw a 133% hike while commercial taxes dropped as businesses fled. They criticize Mayor Brandon Johnson's hiring of predominantly Black staff as reverse discrimination and argue that rising taxes in North Lawndale and Englewood destroy poor communities previously subsidized by departing wealth. The hosts conclude that this immoral system burdens residents while allowing the rich to exit, exacerbated by a lack of competent leadership among figures like Jasmine Crockett. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Chicago Property Tax Debacle00:09:17
Look, Keith, our favorite mayor.
Yeah, this guy just screwed over the black community in Chicago.
Hey, but they deserve every bit of it.
Yeah, check this out.
This month, some homeowners in Cook County in for a shock when it comes to their property tax bills.
Some bills going up 100%.
Cook County Treasurer's Office did a property tax analysis, and Treasurer Maria Pappas joining me now to talk about that study.
I really appreciate you being here, Treasurer.
So let's just get right to it.
I mean, the sticker shock is real.
What did your office find?
We found that when commercial went down, residences went up.
But when you say went up, we're talking by how much?
By taxes.
So it depends upon the neighborhood generally across the city.
Everything's up 16%, which is kind of scary, okay?
But in West Garfield Park, it's up 133%.
Okay, so in African-American neighborhoods, North Lawndale is up 98% and 82% in Englewood.
So you're saying, how in the world did this happen?
Yeah.
This happened because the commercial base of the city, all these high-rises, commercial buildings that you see downtown are unrented because the businesses have left the city.
Yeah, what happened to Tax of the Rich?
That's what happened when you taxed the rich.
Yeah, they got the hell out of there.
Watch, it gets worse.
That means they're not paying property taxes.
Yeah, so somebody had to pick it up.
So the residences are picking it up.
Second installment of Cook County property taxes are due today, and a coalition of African-American pastors are demanding a rollback to the increases.
They say there is a property tax emergency that is destroying neighborhoods in the city's poorest communities.
Patrick Elwood has more from that.
It is.
It makes no sense.
At the Cook County Building, a coalition of African-American pastors are ringing the bell for what they say is an economic emergency.
They say their church members from the West and South Sides are being priced out of their homes because of skyrocketing property tax rates.
The disproportionate and unjust property tax burden here in Chicago, while West and Southside residents are being crushed by astronomical property tax increases.
In Cook County, property tax rates are calculated by the Cook County Clerk's Office based on the amount of money requested, the levy, by hundreds of local taxing districts.
No single government official, including the assessor or treasurer, sets the rates.
Shut up.
That whole city is broke.
They've been broke.
But they got hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars for illegal immigrants.
And now the black community is like, well, what's up?
Y'all raising my taxes.
Well, somebody's got to pay for all this stuff.
90%, 100%.
So if your property tax bill was, say, $7,500, now it's $15,000.
Man, whatever black people touch, they destroy it.
Yeah, just Cook County Tax Assessor.
This office determines the fair market value and the assessed value of more than 1.8 million parcels of property in the county.
The assessor, again, does not set the tax rate or the final tax bill amount.
The Cook County Board of Review, this quasi-judicial agency, finalizes the assessed values after hearing appeals from property owners.
WGN investigates analysis of the situation, found that because of the many still vacant downtown commercial spaces from the pandemic, the Cook County Board blaming it on the pandemic.
Now y'all taxing the hell out of them.
Yeah.
So they're getting out of there.
Yeah, probably.
I was looking at some real estate, that real estate property taxes.
It is insane.
That property tax, it is wild.
It's like one of the highest in the nation.
And now, in some areas, it went up 90, 100%.
More.
Yeah.
Well, now they're going up to the poor people for the money.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Shifted more of the tax burden to homes and other residential units after giving large tax breaks to downtown properties.
These pastors are lobbying Cook County and state legislative leaders to act fast because otherwise they say some homeowners will be forced out.
Look how low their property taxes is.
Wow.
So it sounds like the rich people and their businesses were subsidizing low-income neighborhoods.
They're paying the taxes for the poor people on their properties.
So in 2023, look, $991.
What is that?
A month or a year?
No, I think that's a year, Kevin.
It says 2023 tax payable in 2024.
$900.
Yeah, that's for the year.
Yeah.
And they can't pay that over a year.
You can't pay $2,300 a year when you're used to paying nothing.
No.
Well, it makes sense.
I understand now why they have this debacle going on in Chicago.
These rich people, commercial businesses, were subsidizing low-income neighborhoods.
Now, since these people have ostracized themselves from Chicago and said, I can't take this anymore.
Now these people got to pay their fair share.
Yeah.
Come 2026.
They want rollbacks.
And moving forward, property tax caps.
West Garfield Park, where we have a 133% increase in taxes in one of the these people are not very bright.
They're very naive.
Yeah.
You know, I like Brandon Johnson.
He's making these freeloaders pay their fair share.
You know what I'm saying?
He should be turning them into Republicans now.
Good for him.
Good for Mayor Johnson.
He raised all y'all paying y'all's fair share now.
It's not fair that other people have to subsidize you people.
And so just on the face of it, the immorality of the people in the poorest neighborhood with the highest increase testifies that the whole tax system is a racket.
Dumb.
This dude is so it's immoral to tax poor people for their taxes, but the rich people, they should be paying all the taxes.
It's not immoral to overtax rich people.
Yeah.
But it's immoral to pay your fair share as a, I guess as you call it, a poor person.
Yeah.
That's what's the problem with our with black communities.
We don't have intelligent people representing us.
These are some dense black pastors.
Y'all paying y'all's fair share.
Yeah.
I get it.
Well, look at all these areas with black representation.
Look what it gives you.
Jasmine Crockett.
What's the other dude, the Indian dude?
Canador.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maxine Waters.
Look at the people you get when you have black people as the majority.
You get idiots.
Right.
And you know what?
A majority of people in these poor neighborhoods that now have to pay a fair share in taxes, real estate property tax and property taxes.
A majority of these people don't even pay nothing in the system.
They just take, take, take, take.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
They're not really paying any taxes.
Yeah.
And now they're going to foreclose on your house.
Take your house from you.
Mayor Johnson is going to gentrify the black freeloader out of Chicago.
And it needs to be shaken up from top to bottom.
The pastors gathered here at the historic Quinn Chapel.
Now, this is about six months ago.
Okay.
Look how they were standing up for Brandon Johnson and his nonsense.
It was a carefully controlled gathering of dozens of black pastors from across the city.
We have this already lined up.
We have all of this already prepared.
The objective, defend Mayor Brandon Johnson and his hiring practices, which are now under scrutiny by the Department of Justice, which is looking to see if they are discriminatory in favor of black people.
Yes.
We stand today as a collective group of faith leaders to say enough is enough.
Yes, sir.
The harassment has to stop.
It all started last Sunday when Johnson bragged in another church about all the blacks he had hired, drawing the attention of the White House.
The deputy mayor is a black woman.
Department of Planning and Development is a black woman.
Infrastructure deputy mayor is a black woman.
See, these are idiots.
You vote for these dumb people.
What would it look like if a white man got elected?
Such and such is a white woman.
Such and such is a white woman.
The leader of this organization is a white woman.
What would you think?
Right, right.
But they support him and rally for him.
Right.
And it's stupidity.
But you know what?
If you're going to, I mean, if you're going to hire a black woman, if you're going to hire a majority of your administration black women, they got to be qualified.
It sounds like to me, you're picking them just because they're a black woman.
Exactly.
Why else would you say it?
Yeah.
Chief operations officer is a black man.
Budget director is a black woman.
Senior advisor is a black man.
And I'm laying that out because when you ask, how do we ensure that our people get a chance to grow their people?
Hiring Black Leadership00:00:46
What if Trump said that?
Our people.
And he names off all these white people.
It's a double standard.
It feels like to me, the impression he's giving me that he only represents black people.
Yeah.
Business.
Having people in my administration that will look out for the interest of everyone and everyone means you have to look out for the interests of black folks.
That is crazy.
Now he did all this for black people, hiring all these black people.
He's going to tax the rich.
He's going to raise the taxes on the rich people.
Now look where it's got you.
Yeah, now the rich is fleeing your city.
Well, it just all boils down to this stupidity.
You forced the taxpayers, the only people that was paying taxes in your city, to leave.