As the March referendum approaches on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s real estate transfer tax proposal to address the homelessness crisis, it’s important that we move beyond the rhetoric of its supporters.

Johnson’s Bring Chicago Home plan is essentially a regressive tax increase in search of a program. It’s conspicuously absent any affordable housing strategy beyond depositing revenue from the tax increase into a new fund. What the mayor is proposing would not address the homelessness crisis and would have an adverse impact on city businesses, homeowners and renters alike.

Let’s look at the facts:

First, this would be a dramatic tax increase on the city’s already overtaxed commercial property.

While the tax is being sold in City Hall as a “mansion tax,” it would fall disproportionately on hard-pressed owners of commercial properties whose values are plummeting. A Crain’s Chicago Business analysis of property sales of more than $1 million from April 2021 to April 2022 showed more commercial property sales than residential property sales by a rate of 9 to 1, or $7.5 billion to $841.8 million.

Notably, Chicago’s commercial property taxes have increased over........

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