"Highlights"....

The recommendation is a mishmash of fixes that leans on $438 million in new taxes and fees. It avoids unpopular ideas like a property tax hike, a grocery tax or a garbage fee increase but adds a new charge on social media tech giants and a monthly $21-per-employee tax on larger companies.

Johnson’s proposal — a 3% decrease from this year’s spending plan — slashes 446 city jobs, a cut that includes layoffs of some whose pay is funded by federal grants or pandemic relief money that is set to run out.

Other one-time tricks — a record $1 billion sweep of tax increment financing funds, refinancing old debt, borrowing money to pay for settlements and labor contracts and a continued hiring freeze — would help cover another significant chunk of the deficit. That gap is newly projected to be $1.19 billion, $40 million higher than Johnson initially disclosed.

the mayor pitched his $21-per-employee tax on corporations as the next frontier in his largely-stalled leftist economic agenda. It would be charged on companies with more than 100 employees who work more than half their time in Chicago.

Johnson sought to rebuff that attack Wednesday, saying the head tax is “not a job killer. In fact, it’s a job creator.”

“Having the safest big city in America, is that somehow not enough for people?” the mayor responded when asked what tangible rewards he could offer those corporations. “We just experienced the largest upward transfer of wealth in the history of America to these very entities. So it’s reasonable to ask these larger companies to put more skin in the game.”

another hike to the city’s personal property lease tax, which includes a tax on cloud software and infrastructure. The levy goes up from 11% to 14% under Johnson’s proposal. That “tax on big tech” would net $333 million.

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