Today’s Boston Not JFK’s
By Joe Guzzardi
Journalists who cover the immigration beat have a maxim: “Never say you’ve been witness to every conceivable violation of immigration law; you’ll soon be proven wrong.” In her relatively short two-and-a-half-year period as Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu has, with her outrageous anti-public safety positions, alienated large swaths of her constituents and established a new low for wokeness, a dubious distinction considering how extreme political correctness has devastated the country. Like the nation’s other uber-progressive mayors, New York’s Alvin Bragg and Chicago’s Richard Johnson, Wu has brought a once great and historic city into chaos. Wu supports decriminalizing shoplifting, larceny, disorderly conduct, receiving stolen property, driving with a suspended license, breaking and entering with property damage, wanton and malicious destruction of property, threats, a minor in possession of alcohol, marijuana possession, and possession with intent to distribute. Another way to consider Wu’s goal is that she champions legalizing shoplifting, larceny, etc.
Wu, a Taiwanese immigrants’ daughter, is a Chicago native who moved to Boston to attend Harvard University and then Harvard Law School. At Harvard Law, Wu became Elizabeth Warren’s protégé and a campaign assistant in her former professor’s successful 2012 U.S. senate bid. Growing up in Chicago, Wu was a big league Senator Barack Obama aficionado; her affiliation with Warren added the final touches to Wu’s radicalization.
In 2013, Bostonians elected Wu to the City Council. By 2018, she had easily ascended to City Council president. When the 2021 mayoral election rolled around, Wu was an established Boston darling. After filling out Progressive Massachusetts’ “2021 Boston Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire,” the Boston electorate had no doubts about Wu’s soft-on-crime agenda. Progressive Massachusetts’ identifies as an organization that “intends to transform Massachusetts into a bold laboratory for progressive state initiatives.”
A sampling of the questions and Wu’s answers: Q. Do you support shuttering the Boston Police gang database? A. Yes; Q. Do you support…the do-not-prosecute list that includes robbery and other crimes currently subject to prosecution? A. Yes. In the questionnaire, Wu also outlined her other progressive ideas including giving illegal aliens voting privileges in local elections. Despite Wu’s well-known radical agenda, she ran virtually unopposed; Wu coasted to victory.
Bostonians cannot be surprised then when Wu kept her promise to radicalize their city. Wu has been ripped over her tone-deaf and frivolous plan to give kids as young as 11 and illegal aliens voting rights when it comes time to decide how millions of dollars in public funds are doled out. The city’s new proposed participatory budget voting process, which will go into effect in July, gives ordinary Bostonians the ability to decide how a portion of the city’s budget will be spent, the Boston Herald reported. Last month, during a committee hearing reviewing Wu’s fiscal year 2025 budget, City Councilor Ed Flynn, a Democrat, slammed the mayor’s proposed new process, specifically the involvement of children and illegal aliens. Flynn also aired his grievances in a letter to the Office of Participatory Budgeting’s director, Renato Castelo, in which he flagged his “unequivocal and vehement opposition” to the looming process. “During this time of great fiscal uncertainty — with a study warning that remote work policies and the city’s declining commercial property values may cost us $500 million in revenue annually, as well as a subsequent proposal to also tax commercial property at a higher rate — now more than ever, it is critical that we show the taxpayers of Boston that we take our financial responsibilities seriously,” Flynn wrote. “Allowing children [and illegal aliens] to decide the usage of taxpayer dollars would do just the opposite, and be viewed as tone-deaf, unserious and wholly inappropriate by my constituents.” Boston reportedly has 672,000 residents with 28.2% being foreign-born, according to the city website.
The Boston Policy Institute confirmed Flynn’s grim outlook on Wu’s potentially crushing problems. In its analysis, BPI concluded that Boston is likely to face a cumulative revenue shortfall of more than $1 billion in the next five years, and with no clear prospect for recovery, budgetary deficits could persist for decades, triggering a long-term decline in public services and economic vitality. Boston has few ways to compensate for lost tax revenue. Massachusetts precludes cities from introducing local sales and income taxes; fully offsetting the decline in commercial real estate would require a 25 percent to 30 percent increase in residential property taxes.
The illegal alien population that Wu is eager to grant voting privileges has taken over Boston’s predominantly black Roxbury neighborhood. Thanks to President Joe Biden’s open border agenda and Wu’s collaboration, Roxbury has lost its community recreation center. Roxbury is nearly 57 percent black, almost 30 percent Latino, and only six percent white; its $30,654 median income is less than Boston’s $52,433. More illegal alien arrivals and therefore more Boston citizen displacement goes on every hour of every day. “We [Boston] continue to see migrants at the airport. They come to Logan [Airport] a number of ways. They also arrive at Logan at all hours,” a Massport representative told Boston 25 News. The numbers of migrants being housed at Logan often spike to more than 100. Envision the mess Boston will be after illegal immigrants cast votes that will, with Wu’s blessing, determine the city’s financial future.
For now, Wu’s push to legalize dozens of previously punishable crimes, as well as promoting voting privileges for illegal aliens and sixth graders put her in undisputed first place for the mayor who has consistently proven that she has no regard for Bostonians’ personal safety. Wu’s other and more compelling problem is that violating 8 U.S. Code § 1324 – “Bringing in and harboring certain aliens,” is a felony. Wu is clearly guilty of harboring, not that anyone in the Department of Justice cares. In anticipation of the 2025 election, Wu’s critics have launched a “Save Our City” campaign. The scuttlebutt about who, if anyone, would be willing to face Wu has already started. Some speculate that Wu’s greatest challenge may come from the left, a move toward governance that Boston could not survive in any form that John F. Kennedy could recognize.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org
Today’s Boston Not JFK’s
