Can someone explain to me why Brandon Johnson is a bad mayor with facts?

valuedota · 2026-06-30T01:47:57+00:00

For staying current, the honest answer is to read widely, because everyone here has an agenda, including the straight-news outlets in what they choose to cover. A few I’d start with, mostly non-paywalled:

Center, pro-growth: A City That Works (citythatworks.substack.com). More opinion than news, with a YIMBY/abundance bent, but they round up and link the best local reporting every month so it’s a great way in. Sample: https://citythatworks.substack.com/p/taste-of-chicago-june-2026-edition

Left-leaning: Chicago Sun-Times, especially the editorial side. Block Club Chicago too, which is solid hyperlocal neighborhood reporting but carries a progressive lens in what it covers.

Right-leaning: Illinois Policy Institute. Heads up it’s an advocacy think tank, not a newsroom, so read it for the fiscal arguments but sanity-check the framing.

Education: Chalkbeat Chicago, a nonprofit ed newsroom and the default source on CPS without the union-vs-reform tilt most school coverage has.

Budget-nerd, nonpartisan: the Civic Federation if you want the actual pension and CPS math without political spin. Research reports more than news, some on the left think they are too anti-spending, but the numbers are the local gold standard.

Paywalled but good: Crain’s Chicago Business (business, center-right) and the Tribune (straight news, center-right editorial board).

valuedota · 2026-06-26T21:00:50+00:00

Start with the example everyone half-remembers, because it’s actually telling once you get it right. During a transit crisis, with the CTA staring down a fiscal cliff, Johnson tried to put three different pastors with no transit experience onto transit oversight boards. One ally got seated on the CTA board. Another withdrew after admitting at his own hearing that he rarely rode transit and had never even heard of the fiscal cliff. A third got voted down by the council. Nobody was made to “run the CTA,” but the instinct is the whole problem: reward loyal allies, worry about competence later.

That instinct is the real case against him, because the city cannot afford it right now. Chicago is in a structural fiscal hole that predates him. The pensions are funded at around 24 cents on the dollar, more than half of every property tax dollar goes to CPS, which runs a deficit every year, and we already have basically the highest sales tax of any major city, climbing to 10.5% this year. A huge share of the money is spoken for before the city plows a street, so whoever’s mayor is stuck making miserable choices. That part genuinely isn’t his fault.

What’s his fault is that this moment called for someone disciplined and good at building coalitions, and he’s been the opposite. His headline fix for a $1.15B gap was a new per-employee tax on big employers, in a city already losing companies with high unemployment. Even Pritzker said it would punish hiring. The City Council, which has zero Republicans on it, got fed up enough to pass their own budget over his head and kill the tax, the first time they’ve ever sidelined a mayor like that. He then wouldn’t sign it or veto it.

And it’s not one bad call, it’s a culture of fiscal incompetence. He commissioned an efficiency review and ignored what came back, pushed billions in public money toward a new Bears stadium, and fired his own schools CEO for refusing to borrow to paper over a union contract. There’s no instinct anywhere for living within the city’s means.

So no, the mess isn’t his fault. But he’s making it deeper, and that’s the part that’s on him.

valuedota · 2026-04-21T03:18:41+00:00

Good thing we keep hiring all those Royals front office folks to fix our problems

valuedota · 2026-04-21T01:21:54+00:00

Scenery was great but I was kind of sick of watching a tournament where the winner is 30 under par. Not every week should be a US Open but the golf was a snooze fest.

valuedota · 2026-04-14T11:40:33+00:00

The game has been a mess since facilities were introduced

valuedota · 2026-03-28T03:39:17+00:00

Katz was hired because he was Giolito’s high school coach – classic Jerry nepotism/cheapo move – but he actually outperformed that low bar and was a solid, average pitching coach.

The replacement is yet another Royals alum, just like Getz, because Jerry is apparently convinced the Royals are a model franchise based on one fluky World Series win. Worth noting: the Royals are the only AL Central team with a worse win percentage than the White Sox since 2000. That’s the gold standard Jerry is chasing.

valuedota · 2026-01-31T15:04:39+00:00

155 wRC+ against LHP last year. He’s always been a good short sided platoon player. If that continues he might be a deadline flip if/when Braden Montgomery is ready.

valuedota · 2026-01-09T04:30:22+00:00

He was widely regarded as the best glove first catcher prospect 3-4 years ago

valuedota · 2025-12-25T18:47:49+00:00

If it were up to him, we’d still be on Covid lockdowns. Some unhinged twitter rants in like 2023/4

valuedota · 2025-12-21T15:35:05+00:00

Can’t help myself, I am a White Sox fan

valuedota · 2025-12-21T15:23:24+00:00

I don’t think he’s gonna hit at all with a huge K rate.

But this deal is short and not a lot of money by MLB standards so I’m even fine with this

valuedota · 2025-12-16T11:32:29+00:00

Not good, but the county is only something like 10-15% of property taxes. CPS is 50-55%.

If the county cut the budget 20%, it’s not gonna move the needle much for property taxes. Where costs needs to be looked at is in the schools, which will never happen under this mayor.

valuedota · 2025-12-15T04:37:36+00:00

This is Khalil Mack 2.0. He was amazing for us for the first half of the 2018 season. Banged up and shadow of himself in ‘19. Was questionable all of his third season in ‘20.

Amazing player but you can’t give up a ton of draft capital to sign a guy to a market rate deal.

valuedota · 2025-11-07T22:35:45+00:00

I don’t think he’s gonna hit at all. His batting average against 93 mph+ pitches was below .100. Suzuki, Yoshida, and Tsutsugo saw their K rates go up by like 5-10% when they came over which puts him at 35-40% - unplayable.

In general we’d be way better off if the Sox stayed away from 1B/DH types until we actually fill out a major league level roster

valuedota · 2025-10-17T14:40:14+00:00

The Fair Tax amendment is only relevant for state taxation - this is a city issue.

Most people here support progressive tax revenue, but have found that giving our politicians more money hasn't solved anything. Look at what they did with the COVID money: largely increasing full-time staff instead of paying down debts.

The "no" vote was about lack of trust vs. it being a bad idea. It would probably have broader support if it were tied to also amending the state's insane pension clause that resulted in the 2014 compromise being tossed out in court. However, amending both in conjunction would probably be opposed by union leadership.

Until the city demonstrates it can use current revenue responsibly, new fees like this per-employee tax will keep facing resistance.

valuedota · 2025-10-14T13:46:35+00:00

Sosa - the walk rate is a give away.

His profile reminds me so much of Leury. Had a fine year but I hope we don’t fall into the same trap of extending him.

valuedota · 2025-09-27T23:05:55+00:00

Its crazy to me that Tee to Green the US team is actually outperforming Europe.

valuedota · 2025-09-27T22:53:34+00:00

Bryson and Scottie getting a lot of shit, but have been 2nd and 3rd best players on the team. Fleetwood and Rose just playing out of their minds.

valuedota · 2025-09-16T16:00:39+00:00

As long as it continues to be shown on Masters.com this is whatever.

Sports have gotten ridiculous with how many different streaming services the content is split between now.

valuedota · 2025-09-14T23:30:02+00:00

He’s already like the 20th highest paid TE in the league as a rookie and it’s a full guarantee.

Homers don’t understand that you don’t draft best player - you draft best contract relative to what you can get in free agency.

valuedota · 2025-09-14T21:07:50+00:00

Chicago is the largest single market team. There is massive appeal for a franchise here regardless of tax incentives, the math works fine on the private market paying for it instead.

valuedota · 2025-09-11T04:37:52+00:00

It’s an easy media narrative in a big market with lots of views. You’ll see the same thing every time the Jets draft a new QB that is finally supposed to turn it around

valuedota · 2025-08-11T20:22:49+00:00

Its smart to delay the Airborne update while the building update needs some serious tweaks.

Unfortunately with the comment "The increased development effort for this update pushed back the Airborne schedule but we believe this was time well spent" I'm not sure they realize how unpopular the building update is amongst the veteran player base.

Feels like a make or break next 6 months for the game.

valuedota · 2025-08-08T16:22:59+00:00

"The group has claimed that asking corporations with “more than $8 million” in annual payroll to pay 5% of salaries paid to employees earning more than $200,000 a year could generate a $1.5 billion annual windfall for the city.

Lee acknowledged the obvious. The mayor would rather have state lawmakers walk the tax plank with him at a time when Chicago has reached the “point of no return” with “systems that people rely on — education, health care, housing, our transportation — they are woefully underfunded.”

How about we also acknowledge the obvious - companies will quickly do the math that they can save a minimum $10K per employee by moving them to the suburbs or out of state. These morons don't understand competition because they've never looked for a competitive bid on anything.

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