President Obama is pitching his new tax plan as a way to help the middle class at the expense of the rich. But middle-class savers are bound to notice if he achieves two of the White House’s stated goals—to “roll back” tax benefits of 529 college savings plans and “repeal tax incentives going forward” for Coverdell Education Savings Accounts.

Both plans allow parents, grandparents or anyone looking to help fund a kid’s education to contribute after-tax dollars into accounts that grow tax-free. There is also no tax when the money is withdrawn, provided it is used for qualified educational expenses such as tuition, fees, books, room and board.

Mr. Obama wants to allow the IRS to tax as income any withdrawals from future 529 contributions. This would make them less attractive. The White House goal seems to be to discourage private thrift, and encourage greater use of government benefits, when paying for college.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday defended his decision to replace only 5 of the 21 acres of South Side parkland he wants to take for the Obama Presidential Library, if the Obamas choose either Washington Park or Jackson Park.

“Given that the building will deal with 4-to-5 acres, we will replace that, acre-for-acre, and make the open space whole. . . . It’s specific to the building and I think that’s the right way to go,” the mayor said after introducing the land transfer at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

But the Obamas want a campus surrounding their presidential library and museum. Taking up to 20 acres in Jackson Park and 21 acres in Washington Park — both storied parks designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted — would help to create that campus feel.

There’s a new proposals for stiffer requirement before the city of Chicago installs any new red light cameras, reports WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore.

Aldermen Tony Beale and Tom Tunney have introduced an ordinance that would require any new red light cameras to have a hearing on why they are needed and approved by the City Council.

Tunney says the cameras would have to have a pedestrian countdown for the green light and yellow lights more than three seconds long.

Bruce Rauner’s wealth proved to be a double-edged sword on his march to becoming Illinois’ governor, buying top-notch campaign machinery but giving rivals an opening to question his ability to wall off official actions from his interests in a vast investment portfolio.

Just before taking office, Rauner moved to allay any lingering concerns with a vow to “avoid even an appearance of a conflict of interest.” Rauner said he was “establishing specific blind trust procedures during my service as governor to eliminate my day-to-day involvement in any company or issuer in which I hold any security interest or investment.”

Rauner may have invoked the term “blind trust” — a legal instrument establishing an ignorance-is-bliss financial structure when it comes to public officeholders — but he didn’t actually set up one. Nor likely could he have without running afoul of a peculiarity of Illinois ethics law.

Gov. Bruce Rauner has thawed out his spending freeze for the Illinois Tollway’s upcoming $1.6 billion construction program this year, but new contracts for the state’s annual highway maintenance and improvements are still on hold for now.

A tollway budget committee today cleared $175 million in construction projects, submitting them for approval by the tollway’s board next week after receiving the go-ahead from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.

“At this time, the tollway has the approval of (the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget) to continue operations in its regular capacity,” said Rauner administration spokesman Lance Trover in an email.

The Rev. James Meeks took over as chairman of the State Board of Education on Wednesday and immediately backed the idea of a 10.7 percent increase in school spending despite the state’s serious financial woes.

“Health-care economics tells us it’s unlikely that a single-payer healthcare system, a model in which the government pays for all healthcare costs, can efficiently and effectively deliver quality care in an affordable manner,” states Naomi Lopez-Bauman, Director of Healthcare Policy for the Illinois Policy Institute, an independent research organization. “Overreaching, one-size-fits-all, bureaucratic approaches to healthcare reform are doomed to fail. Solutions that put patients in charge of prioritizing their own needs and preferences should be the starting point of any healthcare reform.”

Proponents of government-run healthcare claim that typical market forces, such as competition and price transparency, somehow perform differently when related to healthcare policy; and, therefore, cannot be successfully applied on a large-scale. Despite that narrative, there is a burgeoning free-market healthcare system in America. And, it is proving those claims to be patently false.

The free-market healthcare model that is being put into practice is most commonly self-funded care, which requires no insurance. The practice has been steadily evolving into a system that is accessible at almost any income level. Today, many free-market practices are able to offer an affordable healthcare option to those who are uninsured, sick and high-risk.