Chicago City Wire

For every new one created, two existing ones must be eliminated. That's President-elect Donald Trump's proposal for dealing with the outrageous growth in federal regulations. It sounds like a good plan, at least for starters, and we hope it works, moving our country in the right direction: toward more personal freedom and the innovation and prosperity that flow from it. We also hope that leaders at the state and local level will be inspired by the new president's example and implement similar policies in their own jurisdictions.

Are you listening, Rahm?

We didn't think so. But you should listen, and so should all the other presumptuous, elected or appointed, micromanaging martinets across this country who keep laying more and more requirements and prohibitions on the working people who pay their salaries.

A case in point: Back in June, Hizzoner signed a 58-page ordinance establishing unnecessary, overreaching controls on home sharing in the city – including warrantless searches of all homeshare properties. You know, those searches prohibited by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

There are nearly 5,000 Airbnb hosts in Chicago, earning an average of just over $5,000 per year renting their homes through the service, for a grand total of roughly $25 million. Is there some reason we can't be allowed to supplement our incomes? How else can we afford to pay the taxes that keep public employees in the clover?

Naturally, this ordinance is being contested in court, but the question is, why was it passed in the first place?

Mr. Mayor, if you didn't get the message from the recent election, here it is: We are tired of being told what we can and cannot do by people who have no right to dictate to us and don't know what they're talking about, anyway. You and they need to start  acting like the public servants that you are and not the all-powerful despots you imagine yourselves to be – or you'll soon be retired.