>> Mayor Brandon Johnson wants large companies in Chicago to pay up Johnson's most recent budget proposal calls for a $21 per employee monthly head tax for businesses with more than 100 workers.

He says that would generate 100 million dollars to fund violence.

Prevention efforts.

But it sparked a heated debate as critics say the tax would hurt the local economy.

Johnson defended the plan earlier today.

>> I don't think it's an unreasonable service.

For 3%.

Of our largest corporations that have 100 or more employees that are full time.

To pay their fair share.

Look, I made a commitment to the people of Chicago that we're going to invest in them and that we're going to challenge those with means to put more skin in the game.

>> Joining us to talk about the issue Sean Deiah, co-director of the Institute for Public.

Good, a nonpartisan policy and advocacy group and Pat Door director of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago.

Thanks to both of you for joining I'm going to ask both of you about your positions on this tax issue.

And I are first to you.

You supported.

Tell us why.

>> Yeah, so I'm coming with this perspective of a neighbor that came from a working class family, but also coming with the perspective of someone that started and scaled a 300 person business here in the city of Chicago.

Wright decided to actually headquarter the city and in the city of Chicago.

And the reason that we did that was because we know that the top 3 reasons for people starting businesses and the city are for primarily quality of life.

Why did people start businesses in the city?

It's because this city is the most affordable city.

The most healthy, large city in this country.

And we want to make sure that we're continuing to do that.

So as we think about this had tax, I want to be clear that this had tax is actually a different head tax than what was around in the Daley administration and You know, we're going to talk about them The reason it's different is because that had tax targeted.

>> Businesses that were 50 or more employees.

This as we're actually not going to target the beloved virtue.

That's on the South side.

We're not going to target the Beagle.

Miller and Lincoln Square that just recently actually closed its in-store sales.

You're saying is this one is narrower, it started companies right.

So these are and however, comma Pat, not a fan.

>> CFO went astray.

This was disingenuous to the point.

It.

>> She said it only applies to full-time workers.

Then you've actually read the ordinance applies to any worker making $2500 a month 3 times in a quarter.

That's a good bartender server working part-time.

You get roped in the whole ordinance incorporates the same trap we have with Rahm, where combined independent businesses make sure an owner.

So a pizza or a bar that night on 2 locations and combines them to get you to the 100 and you're stuck being liable because you've doubled or tripled down on Chicago for 3 locations.

And now you're going be paying this much higher.

$21 play Pat Pat, OK?

So and going back to your Pat supporters of this tax they say in the mayor has said it himself that the city needs this money.

>> To fund the community violence intervention and prevention work that the city has seen success with along with other services.

So if big companies rely on the city to provide that public safety as well as educating the future workforce, should those do you think those big companies should also pitch in to support the community safety efforts?

As the mayor says it would?

>> Well, W t Tw scare.

A lot of those companies donated generously to City Hall programs for youth Employment and crime prevention headed by the Crown family.

But above and beyond that, what a property taxes for what are the 10 to 12% sales taxes are paying for the good of the city of Chicago.

What are the fees for are creating a whole new tax?

And honestly, the mayor does have one good point.

Jobs are a great way to stabilize communities to promote community safety.

Now we're taxing job creation.

If it easy to create jobs here, we wouldn't have a pharmacy and grocery drought and a 3rd of the city and we have to focus job creation, not squeezing existing jobs, more revenue that should be coming from other existing sources.

>> Asian, could this not discourage companies from from setting up shop here?

Yeah, I mean, the data shows that there is actually no relationship between local taxation and job rate.

Congressional Research Services issued at the survey looking at 50 years of tax policy in this country.

>> And show that there's no relationship there.

But what I will say is that of the top 3 reasons why people decide to start businesses and grow businesses here.

The number one thing that people say is how do we make sure that the city's affordable so this head tax is not operating in a vacuum, right?

This head taxes operating as an alternative to the other options that are on the table and the alternatives that we're talking about are taxing working families that are seeing an 80% increase in their ACA health care plans and they are not going to be able to afford the increase in grocery taxes, the increase in liquor taxes, which will affect small businesses, the increase in property taxes.

We need to ensure that we are not balancing this budget on the backs of working people and the choice is clear.

Do we do that or do we tax the corporations that have seen actually ballooning profits over the last 8 years and asking them to contribute just a little bit more alongside working families to fund things that make this affordable city and a safe city.

If I may, we have a definitional problem here in that.

>> We were promised by the CFO 2 weeks get a list of the companies.

This tax would apply to cause as Alderman Bill Conway and other journalists and pointed out the math does not work to get to the revenue number with 3% of employers.

It's got to be a broader net that will impact job in hiring across the city.

But we don't need a congressional research report to explain why this is a bad idea if we're worried about creating jobs when we did one fair wage.

I was here.

We talk with it matter or not.

And what has happened is hiring slowed down and hospitality in this industry.

When we started eliminating the tipped wage.

And that's because we're in low-margin industries that will be caught up in this head tax and why it's not a good idea is because it will disincentivize the smallest companies, especially border awards from investing in Chicago.

When you can go right across the city limits would lower property taxes, lower wages, lower sales taxes and no head tax.

It brutally hard tax on those board awards Chicago.

>> What drives businesses?

And I say this is someone that has created more than 300 cars in the city.

What drives in the hospitality industry at What drives businesses in the city is demand right and demand exists in the city when we make sure that we are not taxing our working families into oblivion, every dollar less tax on working families, a dollar more in pocket that they can go to their nearby restaurants and they're nearby bagel shops.

This is an argument respectfully that is not reflected by the data.

The mayor touted again today how we had record tourism.

>> Record visitors, the airports.

We do not have record employment in these industries.

We're doing more with less because the margins are so tight before this tax.

So OK, so when asked about that because the city had ahead tax in the past, as we've mentioned, 1973 to 2014, excuse me 2012, it was $4 per employee per month for companies with 50 or more employees.

Now that was scrapped by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2014 called it job killer at the time.

>> The mayor is proposing quite a big increase currently.

21 bucks per employee per month for businesses with more than 100 employees.

That is a steep price.

That's $2100 a month.

If you've got 100 employees, for example, pat to you first, can for All can all the companies because some companies are operating with different margins.

>> So lower margin companies to grocery stores, to pharmacies a small businesses that every community, all the 70 neighborhoods want, it cannot or if they can do to it with fewer employees because you've got your property tax bills which were finally going to get next week going into the slow winter season and you're not going to hire with answer any of this tax heading over you into the holidays because you cut somebody loose in January because their of tax, so it will hurt hiring near term and short term, especially in our border awards.

>> As looking at these businesses that 100 or more employees, what we're talking about, the average 100 person company has a 10 million dollar payroll.

And what we're talking about here is a $24,000 tax on an average on the year on that 10 million dollar peril.

That's less than half a cent per payroll dollar.

Right.

This is a thing that large companies can afford.

And it is a thing that benefits not just large companies.

It benefits the small and medium-sized businesses because we know that when we invest in community interventions that work like violence prevention like free public mental health centers that is increasing the ability for people to have safe streets and actually go to their neighborhoods.

Could those small and medium-sized businesses, though, that have smaller margins?

Could they not get squeezed on Those small and medium-sized businesses have deliberately been cut out of this head tax to make sure that we're focusing on 100 plus businesses.

This is not the same.

Had 50 plus people that was operating pack in 1973 to 2014 a veteran of the 2012 phase out.

>> This has the exact same tools that the comptroller back then used a rope and small bars, restaurants and retail stores across the city.

Exactly.

Copied it.

>> Well, into that point, there's been some criticism of the city's analysis over who would pay this tax based on who paid it before the repeal repeal repeal.

I get paid to talk back in 2014.

Pat, what are your thoughts on that?

This is going to catch a wide net.

It was brutal back then because the city decided that individual businesses with some common owners had to pay this thing.

>> At the end of the day, the money that the city should be making offseason, places them coming into Chicago for these jobs spending in their communities.

We're going to have a 12 per cent sales summer.

As soon as the RTA tax goes in those employees spend locally when they come in, even if we're just talking about Amazon and those warehouse jobs, if they go across the city border, they're not doing that.

jewelry spending in the city, but even Texan, the largest employers were not making money.

And we're not keeping those shuffle is that it is easy for a corporation to just sort of up and leave.

Maybe they're scooting to the outskirts of Chicago outskirts of Chicago.

But maybe there's going to Milwaukee or Indianapolis making clear.

I don't speak for Amazon.

We have a warehouse surplus and building boom post pandemic.

>> All over Chicago land.

It is not J logistical challenge to move more of our logistical work which lost a record amount of credit challenger, and Christmas this morning out of the city or to set up a new jobs out of the city.

And those are good entry level job for any Chicago.

>> I will say it is as someone who has built in scale the business, it is challenging to move a business across borders because everything is based on your talent.

But the thing I want to be clear on is that this tax is not existing in a vacuum.

This tax is a set of options that we have to tax large corporations that have actually got more profit during stagnant wages to the Trump administration or do we tax working families into oblivion, pushing them out of the city or to be cut the city services that people rely on to survive.

Protect Chicagoans, protect corporate profits or cut services.

And we got to protect Chicago past 30 seconds left.

What other way should the city be using to raise revenue if not the corporate tax?

>> We're not raising revenues.

Ron conversation were up 50% for the city payroll.

>> Since the pandemic lake, no private business could exist at this point in this economy.

If you are up that much, we're not going to be able fill that