Parents and children hold an 'art in' at the Art Institute to protest tax breaks for Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin... Griffin didn't buy the local artists' work despite a recent $500 million art purchase for his private collection...
Participants in the March 25, 2016 protest against tax breaks for Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin held an "Art Fundraiser" to promote art education because of the cuts partially due to tax dollars being lost because of tax breaks for the richest people on earth. Substance photo by Jean Schwab.On March 25, 2016, about 60 or more parents and children gathered in front of the Art Institute of Chicago to draw pictures and walk to Ken Griffin's office at the beautiful Citadel building nearby. According to our handout; All of us wanted to protest that Ken Griffin has just bought two pictures for $500 million, is the number one donor to Rahm and Rauner, and the richest man Illinois. Griffin routinely gets tax breaks from Chicago's rulers, while the dollars are supposedly not there to fund art education in our public schools.
Our goal was to sell our pictures to Ken Griffin. We were hoping to receive enough money to cover childcare for working parents. We figured that if we collected $500 million from all our drawings together, at least 81,000 children could receive free all day child care saving money for parents that make $5 to $11 an hour. It is the least that Griffin can do considering he supported the closing of 50 schools and was handed a personal tax break of over $16 million by local political leaders. It is time for Griffin, and everyone like him, who has received so much, to give something back.
