Chicago's Progressive Mayor Refuses To Answer THREE Times when asked if he'll Raise City's Taxes to help Pay For The Migrant Crisis
Brandon Johnson has refused to state whether he'll raise his city's taxes to pay for the migrant crisis - despite being asked three times in a new interview.
The Windy City's mayor made the comments - or lack thereof - during
a sitdown with CBS 2's Sabrina Franza Thursday, where talks hovered around the
yearly task of setting a city budget.
The discussion, however, quickly turned to his predecessors' pledge to house arriving asylum seekers - a promise he has vowed to continue,
after an estimated 20,000 entered
Chicago last year alone.
As the two spoke, more than 500 migrants were waiting to be placed in one of the 27 temporary shelters the city has set out for them, with
roughly 200 staying in warming buses at the city's landing zone.
With those facilities now packed - and busses arriving from states like
Texas on the daily - Franza asked the ex-teacher who succeeded Lori Lightfoot about the city's future financial response.
'Will you be adding a tax to help pay for this?' Franza asked, as officials have already
spent $138 million on a crisis that is expected to worsen as temps drop.
'Well, I think people are clearly familiar with what my vision is for revenue in this city, and my revenue, of course, is committed to making sure that we are doing everything we can to address the unhoused crisis in this city,' Johnson, 47, said.
He continued: '70,000 people who are unhoused in this city are black families, and that’s why I invested a quarter of a billion dollars in my budget to do just that.'
The response seemed to stump Franza, spurring her to ask the tax question again.
But Johnson - a man brought up in a suburb of Cook County - continued to deflect, seemingly keeping his options open as three more charter buses were expected to arrive later in the day.
'Will you add a tax to help pay for the migrant crisis?' she asked, this time leading to some some audible annoyance from the first-term politician.
'Here's what I've said repeatedly,' Johnson said, visibly peeved. 'This is an international crisis that requires-'
At that point, Franza - seemingly speaking on behalf of the city's some 2.7million citizens - interrupted.
'We’ve heard you say that.'
Johnson, a Democrat , has blamed everyone from his predecessor Lori Lightfoot to the Biden Administration and Texas Republicans for his city struggling to care for thousands of migrants. Pictured: A man walks through a small tent community for migrants on Chicago's Northside
The Windy City's mayor made the comments - or lack thereof - during a sitdown with CBS 2's Sabrina Franza Thursday, where talks hovered around the task of setting an annual city budget.
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