The city’s latest taxpayer-funded development project reinforces the need to eliminate tax increment financing in favor of honest and transparent city budgeting.
Local governments create TIF districts to encourage development in “blighted” areas; but TIFs often don’t deliver on promised economic benefits, while they do divert tax dollars from other uses and create opaque slush funds for the mayor to reward insider developers.
Chicago would create new transit-based super TIFs before the close of the year in order to secure federal funding, while adding more opportunities for city-run slush funds to hoard tax dollars.
A law passed by the Illinois General Assembly in June allows Chicago to create new transit-based super TIFs, adding more opportunities for city-run slush funds to divert and hoard property-tax dollars.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool has claimed that Chicago students are discriminated against under the state's education funding formula. But the numbers show the opposite: Chicago has received more than its fair share of education funding from the state.
Creating a tax increment financing district around the Lathrop Homes redevelopment will ensure that 100 percent of property-tax revenue generated on the site will go to a city-run slush fund.
Property taxes are the single largest tax in Illinois, burdening residents far more than either income or sales taxes. Illinoisans already know they pay high property taxes. But what is not as well known is that property taxes are outpacing residents’ ability to pay for them. Over the past 50 years, whether measured in comparison...
Occupational licensing requirements present one of the steepest barriers to low-income Illinoisans starting careers in beauty services. Illinois requires anyone seeking to become a barber, cosmetologist, nail technician or hair braider to obtain a state license, essentially a permission slip to work. Unlike 45 other states, Illinois offers only one pathway to licensure for each...