Vicious Circle

Again, from the comments:

• Why aren't they focusing on bringing employment here? How about implementing methods of increasing revenue without taxation on Chicago residents?????

Here's a prime example of where "liberal thought" and cold harsh reality come into direct conflict. A few examples:

• Daley needs money. He institutes a "head tax" on companies with over five employees or something similar - we can't recall the exact number. A large corporation that needs large amounts of semi or low skilled workers (like a factory) has an annual outlay of many more thousands of dollars that locating outside of the city or even in a foreign country
• Daley needs more money. His aldercreatures pass something called a "living wage." Huge retail companies that may have established large retail outlets in the City's most impoverished and blighted communities decide not to build stores there, saving themselves millions.
• Daley needs even more money. He raises taxes by damn near $300 million dollars. People start shopping in the suburbs for food, gas, and everything else, depriving the City not only of the expected revenue from the tax hike, but the previously collected taxes also.
• Daley needs tons of money. He's starving for money. So he spends $59 million or so for another 200+ red light cameras. But guess what? People are learning. They are adapting their driving habits. We see it constantly. We'd love to see a graph outlining what each camera generated when it was installed compared to what it generates today. We'll bet it trends downward - heavily.
• Daley is under the gun to keep the CTA afloat. We don't know why - the CTA should sink or swim on it's own without state subsidies. But the governor that Daley helped install pushes through a monstrous property tax hike...in the midst of the biggest downturn in the mortgage industry due to bad lending practices.
• John Daley needs money for Todd Stroger. Lots of money. Todd has relatives that need jobs and raises and contracts and he has to hire people because "Hog Balls" Beavers needs to line his pockets since his daughter lost the opportunity to steal money as an aldercreature. So John and Todd force through a sales tax hike the likes of which has never been seen, pushing the sales tax to over 10%. That's over and above the tax hikes that have made cigarette running one of the more profitable enterprises a budding black marketeer can get into at an early age.

Not a single one of these examples is made up. And every single one of them is directly responsible for the businesses fleeing the area, shoppers buying in the suburbs and collar counties, and Indiana experiencing an economic boom that seems driven solely by Chicago consumers.

But as long as the Democrats continue to promise free money, housing and cheese to people who spend generations doing nothing but consuming oxygen in exchange for their votes, we will continue this death spiral until Chicago looks exactly like a worse version of Detroit.