Back in February, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago proposed some sweeping revenue changes designed to significantly boost the state’s credit rating to “AA” over time and help accelerate the state’s pension payments to bring down its huge, unfunded liabilities. The group’s proposals were striking because their members are some of the wealthiest people in the state. In the country, even.

House and Senate Republicans claimed during budget-related floor debate last week that the super-majority Democrats had masked the true size of their plan by delaying the start of some spending until the second half of the upcoming fiscal year. Yes and no. Republicans pointed to the $317 million cost of increasing Medicaid provider reimbursement rates, including for hospitals. But that new spending doesn’t begin until January 1, the halfway point in the 2024 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Power corrupts. We know this. In fact, we know this from experience learned the hard way at the hands of our own government. So why is anyone surprised to learn that the FBI, one of the most power-hungry and corrupt agencies within the police state’s vast complex of power-hungry and corrupt agencies, misused a massive government surveillance database more than 300,000 times in order to target American citizens? This is how the government operates, after all.

From Illinois law: “No unit of local government shall levy any tax on stock, commodity, or options transactions.” That statute has long been targeted for elimination by the Chicago Teachers Union and its allies. The CTU reliably shuns any proposal to increase property taxes across the board, instead pushing often-times “magical” solutions as alternatives. It’s one way the union has maintained its popularity among Chicago voters.