{"id":419156,"date":"2025-12-02T09:14:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T09:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419156\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T09:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T09:14:17","slug":"broke-chicago-lawmakers-propose-plan-to-charge-residents-1-25-for-every-package-they-have-delivered-after-spending-600m-on-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/419156\/","title":{"rendered":"Broke Chicago lawmakers propose plan to charge residents $1.25 for every package they have delivered.. after spending $600m on migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of\u00a0Chicago<\/a>\u00a0lawmakers have proposed a $1.25 package delivery fee as they battle the mayor over his controversial budget plan – just months after the city dropped nearly $640 million on migrants.<\/p>\n

With the 2026 spending plan’s December 31 deadline rapidly approaching, Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson has been at odds with\u00a0the sanctuary city’s moderate and conservative council members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chicago is facing a roughly $1.15 billion projected shortfall for the upcoming year. In response to the staggering deficit, Johnson proposed a $16.6 billion budget to close the shortfall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a significant aspect of his plan – a proposed $21 monthly tax per employee for companies with 100 or more workers – was struck down by the Finance Committee last month over concerns that it would drive corporations out of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a budget to pass, a majority of Chicago’s 50-person council must vote in favor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later this week, a small group of council members attempted to solidify an alternative budget, which does not include a corporate head tax,\u00a0the\u00a0Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>\u00a0reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to Johnson\u2019s denied $21 employee head tax, council member Alderman Gilbert Villegas proposed an initiative that would potentially charge residents $1.25 for every package delivered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other local officials, including Finance Chair Alderman Scott Waguespack and Alderman Matt O\u2019Shea, have joined Villegas in crafting a proposal different from Johnson’s.<\/p>\n

\"Chicago <\/p>\n

Chicago city council member Alderman Gilbert Villegas proposed the $1.25 fee to have packages delivered<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The fee on delivered packages may be included in the financially-suffering city’s 2026 budget (file photo: A UPS delivery in Chicago)<\/p>\n

The mayor’s office has rejected the $1.25 charge, claiming that it would need state approval to implement.\u00a0But Waguespack has maintained that it does not, as per ABC 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Along with the ground-delivery fee, the group has suggested nearly doubling the city’s garbage collection fee, which has been $9.50 per month since it was implemented in 2015.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fee would be hiked up to $20 per month, but senior citizens would not have to pay, according to the draft alternative budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But even with this drastic garbage fee increase, it would cover only 55 percent of the city’s total garbage collection costs, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The alternative budget is still expected to include Johnson’s proposed tax increase on cloud computing and equipment leases, but at a lesser rate than the 15 percent the mayor wants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson’s proposal would require $449 million in loans to cover everyday operations, costing taxpayers more than $50 million in interest for those bonds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘If the mayor\u2019s budget proposal is passed, we will most certainly have a downgrade, which will make it harder in the years to come, laying more debt on our children to have to repay,’ O’Shea told the Chicago Sun-Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These budget woes come after Johnson defended spending taxpayers’ money on supporting the more than 50,000 migrants flooding the city since 2022<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From September 2022 to February, Chicago has paid about $638.7 million in vendor contracts to support the city’s migrant residents, according to ABC 7<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Much of the migrant influx came when Texas transported tens of thousands of asylum seekers to sanctuary cities, including Chicago<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tens <\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of migrants have flocked to Chicago since 2022 (pictured: Migrants at a religious gathering outside of a Chicago shelter in 2024)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Democratic <\/p>\n

Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson has defended the city’s spending on migrants\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a March interrogation by the House Oversight Committee in Washington DC, Johnson had admitted that supporting illegal aliens had cost the city about one percent of its budget since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ABC 7 reported that one percent of the budget equates to $625 million, which is lower than what vendor records showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About $850,000 in taxes had also been spent on moving immigrants out of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You’re putting the interest of illegal immigrants above the interest of taxpayers in Chicago,’\u00a0Illinois Republican Representative Darin LaHood told Johnson at the March meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result of his handling of the city’s migrant crisis, Johnson has been at odds with Donald Trump and his administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched Operation Midway Blitz in September, vowing to target migrants with criminal records who flocked to Illinois because of its sanctuary policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail has reached out to Johnson for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of\u00a0Chicago\u00a0lawmakers have proposed a $1.25 package delivery fee as they battle the mayor over his controversial…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":419157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,211,5386,1818,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-419156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115649215130155182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}