Saqib Bhatti: Chicagoans Need a Financial Plan That Puts Neighborhoods First

On Tuesday night, Chicago voters reelected Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a race that was widely perceived as a showdown between the neoliberal and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. However, the election outcome should not be seen as a rejection of a real progressive agenda with alternatives to austerity. Emanuel defeated Jesus “Chuy” Garcia at the ballot box by turning the election into a referendum on Garcia’s financial chops. Even though voters were weary of Emanuel’s “tough medicine” approach to the city’s financial problems, Garcia failed to lay out a fundamentally different view of the problems underpinning the city’s budget and the solutions needed to get the city back on a solid financial footing, and voters opted for the devil they knew over the one they didn’t.


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