As Cook County clerk David Orr released his annual TIF report last Thursday, an otherwise typical week was under way in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago.
Wait—I want to make sure no one took my wallet while I was writing that.
Orr’s report makes it clear that real money is involved. This year the TIFs will tax us $457 million. In the last 25 years, we, the taxpayers, have paid $5.5 billion into the TIF program. If the TIFs weren’t around to siphon off the money, at least $3 billion of it would have gone to the schools and another $1 billion would have been available for city services like policing.
“Mr. Mayor, you know better than this,” the editorial concludes. “You are the manager your predecessor only pretended to be. You demand accountability in others.”
It covers that poor and blighted community just south of the Loop where lots of prosperous professionals live. Mayor Emanuel’s predecessor set up the TIF district to help subsidize a housing complex that he eventually moved into. Sweet move, Mayor Predecessor!
So we’re spending money to lose money—a concept so outrageous that even Mayor Predecessor didn’t attempt it. At least not on this scale.
