These aren’t your grandma’s Cold War–era pols. Inside Chicago’s far-far-left political wavelet.

“We talked to a number of different financial experts who are in the business of financing casino enterprises, and person after person that we talked to told us that the tax structure that’s embedded into the statute that passed is not one that would allow for a casino operator to be successful because it takes too much money out of the deal upfront. So we will see what the report tells us, and then we’ll respond,” Lightfoot said.

Two suggestion from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning: First, state should re-examine its criteria for disbursing revenue to communities. Criteria should take into account things like infrastructure condition and the cost of service delivery, not just population and retail sales. Second, the county’s property tax classification system forces businesses to shoulder a higher share of the tax burden. By phasing out the property tax classification system over several years,Cook County could reduce the commercial/industrial tax differential, encouraging new business investment that will rebuild local tax revenue.