Leftist allies of Chicago’s new Mayor Brandon Johnson have proposed a budget plan that would tax the rich and businesses, and would effectively defund police in a city already nearly crippled by crime.

The budget plan was proposed by ACRE, the Action Center on Race and the Economy, in conjunction with the People’s Unity Platform and is titled “$12 Billion for a Just Chicago.” The first page begins with step one of the plan: “First we get the money.”

The plan also calls for eliminating all current vacant positions at the Chicago Police Department AND cutting the CPD budget by 9%.

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) May 17, 2023

One of the plan’s authors, Saqib Bhatti, was a member of Johnson’s transition team.

Big congratulations to ACRE's @snbhatti & @FREEwrites_ for being named to two transition subcommittees for mayor-elect Brandon Johnson & working toward a stronger, more equitable, safer Chicago. https://t.co/oZPZr0tUFI

— ACRE (@ACREcampaigns) May 1, 2023

ACRE touted the budget plan in a tweet claiming it would “reimagine everything in the city from policing to climate justice, housing & more.”

🚨🚨🚨 New report alert! 🚨🚨🚨

Learn how a moral budget for Chicago would reimagine everything in the city from policing to climate justice, housing & more: https://t.co/o9Q4pWm11R pic.twitter.com/fW7zCn0BS5

— ACRE (@ACREcampaigns) May 17, 2023

The budget plan calls for $12 billion in new taxes — which would reportedly come in part from reducing the Chicago Police Department budget ($1.94 billion in 2023) by 9%, or approximately $175 million. The city would also eliminate all current police department vacancies – which, in August of 2022, amounted to over 900 patrol officer vacancies and over 100 detective vacancies.

Corporations — or any business with at least 50 employees — would face a “head tax” of $33 per employee, which the report estimated would bring in $106 million in new revenue. Anyone making more than $100,000 would face an additional 3.5% income tax – totaling approximately $1.2 billion. The city’s top 10% of earners would also get hit with a .4% wealth tax – amounting to $960 million annually.

A real estate transfer tax on transactions of over $1 million — which the report states would generate $1.63 million in revenue — would be used to fund housing projects that the report claims would “eliminate homelessness.”

The plan also demanded that Chicago refuse to use any federal money to fund law enforcement or Wall Street interests, arguing that investing that money in public housing would contribute more to community safety.

The conclusion, according to ACRE, was that the city’s budget had to be approached from a morality standpoint – and that previous budgets had not done so to their satisfaction.

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“A city budget is a moral document. A moral budget should reflect residents’ priorities and needs. The challenges Black and Brown communities in Chicago are facing today are a direct reflection of the immoral budgets that mayors and alderpeople have imposed on residents for decades,” the report stated, claiming that Chicago’s policing system had always been “racist” and had not contributed to safer communities.

Sales for Bud Light continue to plummet more than one month after the beer brand’s partnership with self-identified transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Retail data from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ indicate that sales for the brew declined 23.6% in the week ended May 6 relative to the same period last year, a slightly worse outcome than the 23.3% decline seen for the week ended April 29.

Other brands marketed by Anheuser-Busch, the multinational conglomerate which owns Bud Light, have also experienced massive declines during the weeks ended April 29 and May 6: Budweiser sales have respectively fallen 11.4% and 9.7%, Michelob Ultra sales have fallen 4.3% and 2.9%, and Natural Light sales have fallen 5.2% and 2.5%.

Bump Williams, the chief executive of the consulting firm, said in an interview with the New York Post, which exclusively obtained the data, that the company is “running out of time to fix the problem as the summer selling season unofficially started last weekend and Memorial Day is in two weeks.” Anheuser-Busch met with distributors last week to discuss strategies for responding to the backlash, which may include a redesign of Bud Light and Budweiser aluminum bottles.

Williams remarked that weekly declines for Bud Light have “started to settle” in the negative 20% range and said that the typical Bud Light drinker is still “waiting for a genuine and sincere apology” from Anheuser-Busch, as well as a “crystal clear communication on exactly what happened.”

The continued woes for Anheuser-Busch brands occur after the firm made several attempts to remedy relationships with consumers. Executives have downplayed the extent of the partnership and even hired veteran Republican lobbyists in efforts to win back conservatives who once consumed the beer.

The fallout against Bud Light and other Anheuser-Busch brands appears to have been a windfall for competitors: sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon increased 21.6% year-over-year in the week ended May 6, a slight improvement from the 18.9% increase in the week ended April 29. Miller High Life saw sales rise 10.4% in the week ended May 6 and 8.3% in the week ended April 29.

The attempts to back away from Mulvaney have also provoked a response from the opposite end of the political spectrum as leftists demand that Anheuser-Busch “stand in solidarity with Dylan and the trans community” or face a second boycott.

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Anheuser-Busch may soon not be alone in experiencing boycotts from beer enthusiasts: Social media users criticized a recent expletive-filled advertisement from Miller Lite that blasted the beverage industry’s past marketing campaigns which revolved around objectifying bikini-clad models, instead promising to donate fertilizer so that female brewers could grow hops. A spokesperson for Molson Coors, the firm which owns Miller Lite, told media outlets that customers should “appreciate the humor” of the advertisement and insisted that nothing in the campaign should be controversial.

Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing at Bud Light who oversaw the Mulvaney campaign, took a leave of absence after footage of her criticizing the “fratty” image of the brand circulated online. Elizabeth Hitch, the senior marketing director for Miller Lite, likewise appears to have assumed a prominent role in creating her company’s advertisement.