Flawed property valuations and the process required to fix them are a cash cow for law firms, including those of House Speaker Mike Madigan, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke and Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.

Illinois homeowners are struggling under the weight of the nation’s highest property-tax bills, according to a new analysis.

House Bill 696 would freeze property taxes across the state. Under the plan, local governments could still increase rates, but only with approval from voters. The bill doesn’t apply to home-rule governments, however. That’s no small exemption: 7.8 million Illinoisans live in a home-rule municipality such Chicago, Naperville or Peoria. This number also doesn’t account for Cook County, which is also home-rule, and would be exempted from this property-tax freeze.

Under Lang’s plan, Illinois’ top tax rate for noncorporate businesses would become 11.25 percent — the second-highest rate in the U.S.

A progressive tax would give Illinois politicians carte blanche to raise rates, which would end up sticking middle-class taxpayers with rates originally intended for “the rich” – all while chasing still more residents and businesses out of the state.

The Illinois House of Representatives voted against a proposal to freeze property taxes, denying much-needed relief to Illinoisans, who bear the third-highest property-tax burden in the nation.

The mayor’s plan to construct the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art includes more of the same bad policies that got Chicago into its fiscal crisis: a bid to borrow $1.2 billion and hike taxes on residents.