Chicago’s mayor has rolled out a Frankenstein budget full of slapdash tax ideas that punish families and small businesses rather than fixing the city’s spending problem. Brandon Johnson’s 2026 proposal leans on novel levies — a social media per-user fee, a resurrected head tax on large employers, and new surcharges on everything from yacht mooring to cloud services — all meant to paper over roughly a $1.15 billion hole in the budget. This isn’t leadership; it’s political theater that shifts blame to private industry while asking struggling Chicagoans to foot the bill.
When the City Council finally had enough, aldermen delivered a rare unanimous rebuke of the mayor’s $300 million property tax hike, voting it down 50–0 and forcing City Hall back to the drawing board. That decisive rejection exposed the yawning gap between Johnson’s campaign promises and his governing instincts; voters who were told property taxes wouldn’t rise are understandably furious. Rather than listen, the mayor doubled down on gimmicks that will raise costs for ordinary people.
Small business owners and hospitality workers are already sounding the alarm about proposed alcohol and other excise tax hikes, warning these levies would crush razor-thin margins and drive customers — and jobs — out of the city. Raising per-gallon taxes on beer, wine and spirits by over 30 percent is not sound fiscal policy; it is economic vandalism disguised as budget-balancing. If Chicago wants to be competitive and attract commerce, it should be trimming red tape, not nickeling restaurants and bars to death.
The centerpiece social media tax — a 50-cent charge per active user over an arbitrary threshold — is marketed as a neat way to pay for mental health clinics, but it reads like a punitive, performative grab at big tech. Taxes levied on platforms will be passed along to consumers, content creators and small vendors who rely on digital reach; the mayor’s “sin tax” logic suddenly applies to the internet itself. This kind of ideological tax policy punishes innovation and will make Chicago a less hospitable place for entrepreneurs.
All of this comes while Chicagoans are worried about public safety and losing faith in their leadership — polling shows an alarmingly low approval for Mayor Johnson and voters list crime and high taxes as top concerns. The city can’t placate residents with virtue-signaling fees when people don’t feel safe on their streets and when basic services are strained. Leadership means supporting law enforcement, protecting businesses, and restoring order before asking taxpayers to cough up more for unproven programs.
Conservative common sense offers a simple set of remedies: prioritize core services, cut waste, and stop reaching for regressive new levies that hammer working families. Budget shortfalls should be cured with fiscal discipline, not with a menu of creative taxes dreamed up by city hall bureaucrats who never write a payroll check. If Mayor Johnson truly cares about Chicago, he should roll back his tax fantasies, work with aldermen to rein in spending, and put public safety and economic growth back at the top of the agenda.
Hardworking Chicagoans deserve a mayor who protects their wallets and their neighborhoods, not one who treats taxpayers as an endless ATM for pet progressive projects. It’s time for real accountability, honest budgeting, and a return to policies that reward work, not punish it. If elected leaders won’t stand up for families and small businesses, voters must — at the ballot box and in the pews, at kitchen tables and on doorsteps across the city.
