“Federal revenues are down. Mayor Rahm Emanuel should use his significant influence in the White House and on Capitol Hill to advocate an increase in federal revenues. State revenues are down. Board of Education President David Vitale, the former head of the Board of Trade, should push for the return the more than $100 million in state tax breaks that went to the CME and increase revenue to our schools. Local revenue is down. Billionaire Board member Penny Pritzker should offer to return the $5.2 million in tax increment financing (TIF) dollars she recently received to expand her Hyatt Hotel dynasty to Hyde Park. And perhaps most easily, the Board should advocate an end to the TIFs that drain a quarter of a billion dollars from our schools each year. CPS has been in revenue decline for a number of years.”
Just ONE MORE ROUND of union concessions, and then finally we’ll be in the money!
I cannot stand dishonest conversations about this kind of thing. The TITS does the CME need tax breaks for? They make more money than God and Scrooge McDuck. Hyatt Hotels needs incentives to go somewhere? How about “make your own damn money,” that’s an incentive. There’s plenty of money. PLENTY of it. It’s just that it’s all tied up bribing rich people to continue to get rich, because that’s not in any way something they were going to keep doing all on their own.
Schools, on the other hand? Schools need pain and suffering to continue to behave. We can’t throw money at them. Look how that’s worked in the past.
A.