Chicago is staring at the possibility of an unprecedented municipal shutdown after a bitter clash over the city’s 2026 budget, as Mayor Brandon Johnson considers rejecting the spending plan approved by the City Council.
The mayor has sharply criticized the package that cleared the council over the weekend, blasting it as “morally bankrupt” because it omits his preferred per-employee corporate “head tax.”
If Johnson exercises his veto power, council members would be forced back to the drawing board to assemble a revised budget that could win the mayor’s signature before the December 30 deadline. Failure to do so could leave city government without an approved spending plan.
The standoff is unfolding entirely within the political left. Chicago’s City Council has no Republican members, consisting of 48 Democrats and two independents, making the dispute an intraparty fight rather than a partisan one.
One of the mayor’s Democratic critics is Alderman Gilbert Villegas, who represents Belmont-Cragin on the city’s Northwest Side and is closely aligned with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Reacting to the veto threat, Villegas said he would “work hard to see if we can get 38-40 votes to override the veto,” noting that the budget initially passed by a 30–18 margin.
At the heart of the disagreement is Chicago’s looming fiscal problem. The city is facing a projected $1.2 billion deficit for 2026. Johnson has argued that policies under the Trump administration tilt the scales toward corporations and away from working families, insisting that businesses should “put more skin in the game.”
Not all Illinois Democrats are on board with that approach. Governor JB Pritzker has spoken out against Johnson’s proposed $33-per-worker, per-month head tax, warning that it would “penalize the very thing that we want, which is more employment.”
Johnson has also pushed back against national media criticism. He took aim at The Washington Post after it published a harsh editorial titled, “Chicago Has Lost Its Mind,” which warned that the head tax and other business-related measures could choke off economic growth. Responding to the paper, Johnson remarked that it “wouldn’t be the first time a publication got something I’ve done wrong.”
The council-approved budget attempts to close revenue gaps through a mix of new and expanded levies. Proposals include allowing video-gambling machines in restaurants and at Chicago-Midway Airport, increasing the city’s shopping-bag tax, and creating a first-of-its-kind tax on social media companies. That plan would charge platforms $0.50 per active Chicago user above 100,000 users, a move expected to generate $31 million if enacted.
Although a full-scale shutdown would be unprecedented, Chicago has seen budget brinkmanship before. In the 1980s, Democratic Mayor Harold Washington vetoed multiple budgets, often triggering tense, last-minute negotiations that ultimately produced agreements.
Washington, the city’s first Black mayor, rejected four budgets during his four-and-a-half years in office before his sudden death in 1987, shortly after winning re-election at age 65.
Within the current council, a key Johnson ally is Alderman Pat Dowell of the South Side, who is spearheading efforts to rally support for the budget, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Dowell acknowledged the plan’s shortcomings but said it is “not perfect but is a good budget and one we can work with.”
Progressives aligned with the mayor have been far more caustic. West Side Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez backed Johnson’s head-tax proposal and condemned the council’s alternative as an “immoral, bankrupt, ‘Michael Sacks’ budget.”
Sacks, a billionaire financier who heads asset manager GCM Grosvenor, has ties to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and donated to several aldermanic campaigns ahead of the budget fight, according to WGN.
Defending Sacks, Alderman Bill Conway III — a former military intelligence officer who represents the Loop — told WGN, “Michael is someone who cares about the future of the city, and he tries to work with those who are like-minded.”
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