WHAT IS A PRODUCTIVE PERSON'S FAIR SHARE OF TAXES?

Never enough.  At least the editorial board of Chicago's Tribune have the good sense to recognize that replacing a cranky socialist with a genial socialist won't turn out well.

San Francisco is the deeply depressing Exhibit A of this phenomenon, a formerly vibrant and prosperous real estate market that has been shedding hotels and seeing major retail and office space fall fallow. In a recent commentary, the editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch made a similar, compelling case about downtown St. Louis falling into a downward spiral, not least because of pro-gun and other anti-urban policies imposed by Missouri state lawmakers hostile to the city.

The genial socialist, felicitously named Brandon Johnson, is both soft on crime, and of the view that productive people never pay enough taxes, and the editorial board, which I believe endorsed his opponent in the mayoral run-off, calls attention to both the softness on crime and the resentment against achievement.

As this page has observed on several occasions, downtown needs to be re-imagined as a mixed-use neighborhood, less reliant on office commuters and more welcoming to a diverse array of residents. It needs to be safe and walkable, with green space and the kind of cultural, retail and dining options that make people want to put down roots. It needs housing that’s at least reasonably affordable for everyday families. Remaking this economic engine should be a top priority for anyone who cares about the city.

For Mayor Brandon Johnson, who took office in May, a reckoning awaits. Johnson campaigned on raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to fund projects in neglected parts of the city outside the urban core.

Shortly after he took office, his progressive pals floated a plan titled “First We Get the Money” that fantasized about imposing billions in new taxes, while imagining that those who earned the money would simply hand it over and keep handing it over indefinitely. After the predictable backlash, Johnson retreated from the plan — at least temporarily.

It never occurred to the mayor or his Gimme Caucus on the city council that people could say no.

Want to run off some of downtown’s top employers? Impose a transaction tax on the financial markets. Want to discourage companies from bringing office workers back downtown? Pass a head tax on each employee, and a tax on suburbanites commuting to the city. Want productive people to leave altogether? Sock them with city wealth and income taxes. Want to chase away visitors? Jack up those already outrageous hotel and entertainment taxes and invent new user fees to make popular events and venues more costly.

It's not as if big city mayors don't have the Detroit commuter tax to study, is it?

Ironically, the one tax that Johnson has said he doesn’t want to increase is probably the one where he has the most latitude. Property taxes in Chicago tend to be lower than those in surrounding communities. The city could in theory levy higher taxes by socking it to new property, for instance, or levy for expiring tax increment financing districts, as the Civic Federation noted in a recent research report. It also could simply raise property taxes across the board. It has the legal authority to do so.

Ah, but politically that would be deadly. Chicagoans who supported Johnson understandably want other people to pay more taxes — but certainly not them.

Of course not.  Don't tax you, don't tax me, and all that.  Those other people, though, aren't hiding behind trees, they're up and moving, whether outside Cook County or outside Illinois.

Johnson needs to stop trying to get rich quick by targeting Chicago’s most productive citizens and undertake the arduous work of remaking the city’s core without gimmicks. He needs to partner with real estate owners to sustain the downtown recovery amid the office market crisis. He needs to get busy promoting public safety, workforce development, entrepreneurship and the arts, events and other programs that will keep the heart of the city productive.

Mayor Johnson, downtown matters, and it needs you to be its patron, not a leech.

Yes, although asking a socialist not to be a leech is like asking water not to flow downhill.