Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is admittedly displaying his socialist cred.
He’s introduced a plan to presumably open city-owned grocery shops in so-called meals deserts in Chicago, following the closures of 4 Wal-Marts and a Entire Meals.
In different phrases: Soviet-style central planning!
What might go improper?
Properly, other than the truth that the Windy Metropolis operates on ward-style machine politics, and persistently ranks first within the nation for corruption.
Or that its fiscal profligacy and mismanagement have left it going through a half-billion-dollar-plus price range shortfall; its bonds had been rated as junk till 2022.
However, wait: Why did all these shops shut within the first place?
Hmmmm. Possibly a large 32% soar in theft and thefts over the 2022 yr so far had one thing to do with it.
That’s because of disastrous metropolis and state insurance policies round policing — together with the full elimination of money bail — and a Soros-backed pro-crime “prosecutor” (Kim Foxx, who mercifully received’t search re-election subsequent yr).
Sure, the plan comes swathed within the favored rhetoric of the Twitter left: The transfer’s meant to “restore previous harms which have contributed to purposeful disinvestment and exclusion.”
However the one hurt right here comes from the insurance policies favored by Johnson’s comrades, insurance policies that triggered Chicago’s crime to leap 29% throughout all classes this yr over the identical interval in 2022.
Certainly, Johnson is even softer on crime than his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot.
When a large mob of teenagers went on an assault-and-robbery rampage in Chicago’s downtown, Johnson defended them, saying it was unhelpful to “demonize youth who’ve in any other case been starved of alternatives in their very own communities.”
And he simply launched a lawsuit in opposition to Kia and Hyundai as a result of … individuals have taken to stealing the automobiles they make.
In different phrases, so long as Johnson stays on the helm, town’s “meals desert” drawback is barely going to worsen as public security continues to erode.
That can’t be fastened with cockamamie, Soviet-lite financial interventions.