Tax-increment financing activist Tom Tresser warns that the city of Chicago has engaged in uncontrolled borrowing around TIF funds.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the questionable benefits of having financial markets in Chicago, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the most pathetic contingent of voters in Chicago, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on Ald. Fioretti's real motivation for endorsing Rahm Emanuel, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on how Mayor Emanuel's perceived financial gravitas might not work in a second term, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the absence of free-market advocates from debate over corporate subsidies, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on why some private parcels in TIF districts generate no money for taxing bodies, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the digital manufacturing institute's "ultimate goal" of defense products, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the myth of mayoral retribution, and more.

The Chicago Plan Commission approved an expansion of two Englewood TIF districts for a railroad yard development.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on front-end vs. back-end TIF district reforms, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on what it would take to move the landmark Rees House, and more.

The city estimates a surplus this year (half of which goes to the schools) may yield only $10 million for CPS, but it could be larger. It all depends on how carefully the city scrubs each TIF—determining how many dollars are already spoken for and how many aren’t—and what percentage is counted as surplus. The city currently uses 20 percent.

The city uses 20 percent of what, for what?

The answer came in another Sun-Times editorial, this one on 8/4/13 ("A small lifeline for our schools"):

. . . the city historically allows only 20 percent of uncommitted cash to count as surplus. City Budget Director Alex Holt told us last week that 20 percent was "probably the starting point" this year.

In other words: Of each year's budget surplus for which the city has no plans, the city's been able but unwilling to spend four-fifths of it.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on whether and how the administration drives poor blacks from Chicago, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the actual amount of the city's TIF surplus, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the intended investment payoff of tax-increment financing, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on how the General Assembly's "ladies of the lake" resisted pork, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on how an almost-dead TIF district can rob from its younger neighbor, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on why the public should allow taxing bodies to increase their tax take each year, and more.

Interview with the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky on the proposed state legislation to tax financial transactions and where it went, and more.