House of the rising Moonglum

I’ve been busy lately and haven’t had much time to post, but I have been collecting articles from our local bloggers, and the newspapers, and I have to say: a) I am really glad I didn’t vote for Stroger and b) Dailey needs to go too and c) So does the CTA board. Dude, this place is falling apart:

City. The mayor is in a hurry to raise taxes. Of course you get to pay higher taxes while the value of your home drops. It is no wonder that he needs more money though, given that a huge chunk of what they take in is being thrown away on graft. As if that weren’t enough, most of the city’s revenue is held up by TIFs and SSAs. Interestingly the aldermen and the county seem to be fighting this one a bit. The aldermen are passing through a bit of the hate that they have been picking up from citizens, while the TIFs reduce the county’s cut at well. Speaking of the county…

County. Apparently the way to “cut fat” if you are the product of that fat to begin with is to actually make more fat and raise taxes to cover the difference. He wants to up the county’s portion of sales, gas and parking taxes. He initially wanted to raise the taxes before showing the budget, and now that he has shown this insanely bloated budget I know why. And that is not all Stroger’s woes, the board to evaluate the hospital says that the county shouldn’t run it any more, because THEY SUCK! Well they said, “We don’t believe the governance is adequate at the present time to address this crisis”, but really that is the same thing.

Everything Else. And if tripling taxes wasn’t enough to scare business out of Chicago, how about combining that with increased electric rates? Or perhaps insane public transit? The CTA keeps pissing about needing more money and are talking about cutting HALF OF ALL THE BUS LINES IN THE CITY! The best part is this is going on while the olympic committee is coming to check out Chicago as an olympic venue. Maybe I should get into transit? How hard would it be to get the right of way to run a street-car line? I bet I could cut some sort of deal with the RTA where we share cards, and they get a cut of my profits. Upfront cost would be large, but it seems like this could be made to work, especially if it promised a certain amount of street work/beautification to the city.

OK, sorry to whine, but I just had to get that all off my chest. We now return you to our regular programming.