Dear @spencerpratt,
Do not concede if the time comes to do so. The people are with you. Fight it legally.
Do not give in to these crooked and corrupt people.
Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.
They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.
Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.
They lost them for two reasons.
The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.
In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.
Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.
That fight dragged on for years.
The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.
Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.
So now it's all gone.
The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.
Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.
Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.
But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.
Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.
And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.
Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.
Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."
There it is. "Billionaire-owned."
That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.
Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.
Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."
When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.
They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.
Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.
But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."
Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.
Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.
Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.
@wholemars Idk what you’re talking about because they sold out their used inventory in a day and I ordered a new premium AWD last week and my projected delivery date is Aug/Sept (base is sometime in 2027)
I just voted in the Los Angeles primary election for @spencerpratt
It's not a right vs left thing for me, this is local politics. And what I heard from the incumbents is that everything is going fine, while Pratt said "no everything is not fine. Things could be much better". IMO, everything is not fine and things could be much better.
I'll never forget the LA wild fires, when mayor @KarenBassLA was on some trip in Africa. As soon as there is word of a possible disaster risk in Los Angeles (and we were all warned days in advance), our mayor should be cancelling trips or on the first flight back home. She wasn't.
That might be excusable if things were handled well, but they weren't. It was a disaster. When I heard @KarenBassLA say during the debates the reason the response was delayed was that firefighters were accidentally sent home, my jaw was on the floor. Isn't that your job as Mayor, to make sure that in a moment of crisis everything is handled smoothly? Instead we saw empty reservoirs, a confused response, and entire neighborhoods destroyed.
It is only fitting that our mayor should be forced to run against one of the people who lost their home under her watch. If Los Angeles had been better prepared under her administration, Pratt might be chilling at home in the Palisades with his family instead of running against her.
Sure, he's unproven. He might be a terrible mayor for all I know. But I like the idea of letting someone new take the reins. Someone who has good reason to be frustrated with the status quo.
Today is only the primary election, not the general election. So today's vote will only decide who moves forward. I want Karen Bass to face off against Pratt, not Raman or anyone else, for entertainments sake if nothing else. As we learn more about the candidates I'll make a final decision about who I want to vote for. But right now, having listened to all the candidates, Pratt seems like the only one making sense.
I don't really understand how the LA mayor race is a race at all
How is "There was no water in the fire hydrants" not just 100% disqualifying for both incumbents?
What is the point of paying taxes if the lowest possible expectations are not met?
@TomSteyer If you win the people get f*ck, luckily I’m leaving CA either way…I’ve had enough of this bs, there’s no value of living here other than the “weather.”
Today's cover: The Post endorses Spencer Pratt for mayor — a chance to fix the city. https://t.co/MjwdXDx0eR
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