For a mayor who once promised to erase a $635.7 million shortfall without raising taxes, Rahm Emanuel sure is digging deeply into taxpayers’ pockets — to the tune of nearly $220 million in taxes, fines and fees.
The $6.3 billion 2012 budget that Emanuel unveiled Wednesday calls for nearly doubling water and sewer fees over the next four years to rebuild an aging system the mayor wants to upgrade — not privatize.
The increase will cost the average Chicago homeowner $120 in 2012 alone. The only way to avoid that non-metered rate hike is to install a free water meter to measure water usage, something 316,000 Chicago homeowners have refused to do.
On July 29, Emanuel appeared to take tax increases off the table.
“I’m not gonna ask people who feel nickel-and-dimed to pay more for a system that has not been re-structured,” he said on that day.
“The capital I’ll spend will be political capital to make the tough choices that we have to do for the city. The capital I won’t spend is the taxpayers’ dollars.”
At a meeting Wednesday with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, the mayor flatly denied that he had broken his promise to Chicago voters.
Rahm wouldn't be Rahm if he wasn't lying through his teeth.