How to fund campaign promises

Brandon Johnson strode into a conference room this month at Malcolm X College, where scores of mostly West Siders had gathered to hear how Chicago’s newly minted mayor will align his unapologetic progressivism with the dollars-and-cents realities of the city’s $16.4 billion budget.

The crowd of at least 100 at the community budget roundtable listened raptly as the mayor dared them to imagine: “How about a budget that creates more than enough for revenue?” It was a nod to his stirring orations during the campaign where he often promised his dinner table will be “big enough” for all Chicagoans.

But during another roundtable this past week, Johnson’s budget director, Annette Guzman, spoke in more cautious terms.

“Unfortunately, it’s sort of like a zero-sum game,” Guzman said. “OK, there’s only so much resources that we have. So we have to make sure that we’re allocating it amongst many, many competing interests.”

Their divergent messaging underscored a tension…