New Revenue Measure Can Close the Budget Gap While Addressing Income Inequality

Executive Summary

The City of Chicago is in the midst of a fiscal crisis – to the tune of a $1.2 billion deficit. This deficit has accrued over years of financial mismanagement of previous administrations, during which we saw the degradation of the public good while privatizing public services, and growing income inequality within this city. 

In this moment of financial crisis, the City of Chicago can choose one of two paths – (1) continue the patterns of the past, pass an anti-growth budget of austerity that entails cuts to vital infrastructure and city services, whilst leaving this city’s communities vulnerable to attacks from the Federal government, or (2) support pro-growth revenue streams that close the budget gap, expand the public good, invest in this city’s economic engines – small businesses and their people, and improves the infrastructure of this city. 

The city has tools at its disposal to close this budget gap – such as the measure proposed in this report, the Corporate Income Inequality Tax – that will allow it to structurally redefine how we pay for the needs of our population, while tackling the decades long harms of disinvestment, austerity, and income inequality.

Read the full report here.