CHICAGO: THE
FACE OF A NATION IN SHAMBLES
CHICAGO’S
BLACK GANG LAND…. Is what
happens when bankster Rahm Emanuel
and his corrupt Obama party turned the city under!
BARACK OBAMA FIDDLES WITH HIS CRONY BANSTERS WHILE
CHICAGO BURNS!
"Responsibility for this tragedy lies
squarely with the ruling class and its political representatives.
Chicago is controlled by the Democrats. It is the political home of
Barack Obama and has been run for years by Mayor
Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff and a
multi-millionaire former investment banker."
ILLINOIS FALLS TO LA RAZA MAYHEM…. Apparently Illinois
did not benefit from 8 years of Barack Obama’s sabotage of Homeland security to
build his LA RAZA base of Mexicans
“Illinois is
a state full of illegal aliens. One in seven Illinoisans are immigrants, with 450,000 official illegals. One point two
million jobs are taken by illegals in Illinois. This is one of the
most heavily invaded states in the Union.” --- Timothy Birdnow
THE MANY PHONY LIVES OF OPRAH WINFREY: Still up Barack
Obama’s arse big time!
"In 2008, over 90% of my fellow black
voters were hypnotized by Obama's skin color. I tried to warn black
family and friends that Obama was not black in terms of being one of
us. Obama was first and foremost a liberal Trojan
Horse disguised in
black skin, totally focused on furthering the liberal agenda rather than
dealing with issues plaguing black Americans." DANIEL JOHN SOBIESKI
In 2016, 7881 blacks were murdered, 90.1% of them by other
blacks; 7100 blacks killed by other blacks. FBI crime facts show only 16
unarmed blacks were shot by police. CHRIS KEMBLE – AMERICAN THINKER
BOOKS AND CULTURE
February 25, 2020
No, Mayors Can’t Run the World
In his new book, Rahm Emanuel touts his record but fails to account for Chicago’s ongoing struggles.February 25, 2020
Politics and law
Cities
Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World, by Rahm Emanuel (Knopf, 256 pp., $26.95)
I
n his new
book, The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World,
former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel argues that cities are supplanting polarized
national capitals. In the years ahead, he believes, urban centers will continue
to grow in power and influence. Yet Emanuel fails to account for his mixed
legacy in Chicago. He touts his record, but it’s hardly a model for other
mayors.
Emanuel’s
book begins with an immigration story. His maternal grandfather, Herman
Smulevitz, migrated to the United States from Russia in 1917. The life of Big
Banger—pronounced “Bangah” by Emanuel and his two brothers, who gave their
grandfather the nickname due to his big presence and personality—is a classic
American immigrant tale. Banger arrived penniless, but with some hard work and
a little luck, he made it into the middle class.
Big Banger’s
story allows Emanuel to describe his own Chicago upbringing and highlight
cities as places
of opportunity, a theme he carries into his discussion of education
reform in Chicago, which he calls “by far the single most important thing I
did.” Armed with state funding, he launched full-day kindergarten and pre-K,
reformed teachers’ pensions, and extended the school day. For post-secondary
schools, Emanuel started the Chicago Star Scholarship, which pays for qualified
high school graduates to attend one of the city’s community colleges.
Emanuel
proclaims the success of these initiatives but without offering much supporting
evidence. Chicagoans are skeptical about
Emanuel’s pre-K program, for example, with some worrying that it crowds out
other nongovernment options. Some evidence suggests that pre-K can improve
children’s outcomes in the short term, but its effects on broader
academic success are less conclusive. Meantime, the Chicago
Star Scholarship too often funds students whose academic qualifications would
make them better
suited for four-year universities than community colleges.
Emanuel
also touts raising Chicago’s minimum wage and starting a jobs program for
teenagers and young adults. He fails to mention, however, that a higher minimum
wage reduces
teen employment and harms
neighborhoods when local businesses, unable to withstand the
higher labor costs, shut their doors.
Emanuel
also highlights the work of fellow Democratic mayors. His examples are
progressive mainstays, from more public
transit in Los Angeles to more bike paths in South Bend (yes,
Pete Buttigieg makes an appearance). He also includes a chapter on Republican
mayors, featuring Anaheim’s Tom Tait and Jim Brainard, mayor of Carmel,
Indiana. Emanuel appears to have a soft spot for urban leaders who refurbish
their downtowns or launch creative infrastructure projects, such as the 100 roundabouts
that Brainard installed in Carmel. Emanuel acknowledges that different policies
will work for different cities; but the goals, he believes, should remain
progressive.
In
Emanuel’s view, mayors can fill the void left by a polarized, gridlocked national
government. Yet he wistfully notes the role that the federal government once
played in urban policy, from the New Deal to the Great Society. His support of
“nation cities”—large cities with economies to match—seems born from political
pragmatism rather than a grand vision for the appropriate structure of
government. He wants federal dollars to pay for parks, roads, schools, river
walks, and the like, but he also believes that polarization in Washington
prevents urban progressives from imposing their policies from the top down.
Cities
can’t print money, for example, and borrowing limits prevent mayors from
spending with impunity, as the federal government can do. Though mayors like
Emanuel have long wish lists, financial challenges block their greatest ambitions.
Decades of underfunded pensions have resulted in fiscal peril for America’s
cities. And mayors can’t just raise revenue with more taxes, as they risk
losing residents to more affordable locales. Progressives like Emanuel lament
these constrictions, but they encourage cities to spend taxpayer money more
prudently.
Emanuel
also ignores how mayors possess little statutory power. Chicago has
traditionally had strong mayors, but council-manager forms of government in
some other big cities—including Charlotte, Phoenix, and Dallas—limit the power
of the chief executive. And even in strong-mayor cities, local officials get
their power from state government. Localities are the creations of state
governments, and states can preempt local authority with legislation. This
isn’t an issue for Chicago, considering Illinois’s politics, but mayors in
states from Texas and Florida to Utah can push the progressive vision only so
far. State officials inevitably push back.
Mayors
shouldn’t be too eager to take lessons from Emanuel, at least based on what he
did in Chicago. He signed significant tax
increases, but since he left office last year, the city has faced an $800
million budget shortfall. Chicago’s traffic congestion ranks among
the nation’s
worst, and its metro region continues to bleed
population, while Indianapolis and Columbus are thriving.
Chicago’s problems are the result of decades of mismanagement that no mayor
could fix in two terms, but the city has been
run by progressive Democrats like Emanuel, pursuing a similar
vision, since the Great Depression—so there’s good reason to believe that his
broad views on government policy have something to do with the city’s
condition.
Progressives
will like Emanuel’s book; he speaks their language. Even as he criticizes
polarization in Washington, he remains deeply partisan himself. That’s
regrettable, since some of the stories he shares about mayors from both parties
offer examples of good governance that future leaders could learn from.
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