Both Chicago and Detroit are twins in that both are in dire straits – both essentially bankrupt (more expenditures than revenue) – to you Marxists and liberals, that means there isn’t enough money to pay your bills, so deficits are always showing up on the yearly ledgers. How did this happen?
Detroit population has dropped from a high of 1.85 million to 800,000. Once the jobs declined, the population decline was sure to follow. A rapid rise in poverty, increasing dependence upon federal entitlement programs and a downward economic spiral – what party was in charge of Detroit politics? Democrats.
Speaking strictly of Chicago, it was in better shape for so long because of becoming the first sanctuary city in 1985, increasing the Hispanic population and broadening the tax base. The problems start when the population weighs down the government due to increased dependence on social programs, overextended schools, more public union city workers, hiring more teachers and language translators, and the higher incidence of crime, overtaxing law enforcement and the local jails and Illinois prison system with inmates.
White flight has reduced that population to 1890 levels and black population levels of 1970, according to the Census Bureau. The city has lost more than 3,000 millionaires, more than any other city in America. Overtaxation because of increased city expenditures has forced many people to leave the city and state. In 2015, Chicago lost 6,263 residents, the greatest population loss in any metropolitan area in the U.S.
While the wealth has slowly been leaving the city, residents showing displeasure of local government by “voting” with their feet (many leaving for Texas and Florida for lower taxation and freedom) are slowly killing Chicago and those left have to pick up the slack in taxation and user fees.
The areas that are Hispanic are also the areas that have the highest number of households occupied by people with an eighth grade education or less. This does not bode well for the city’s future employment outlook. Chicago and Illinois – together their economic indicators are the worst in the nation. Illinois lost 105,200 persons to outmigration last year and has the lowest credit rating of all 50 states (President Obama’s United States have 57!), some of the largest debt and the highest unemployment rate, with only Alaska equal in unemployment numbers.
The largest employer in Chicago is not a private or public business, it is the federal government.
What’s more, the average Chicago public school teacher will retire with a pension of $73,000 per year. With a normal life expectancy each person will collect two million dollars of other people’s money. Of course, this pension money is well deserved – 40% of Chicago’s high school students don’t graduate.
The once mighty Chicago Democrat Machine is out of gas, making promises over the years it cannot now keep. If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
The rotting of America from within continues ……..