Mayor Rahm Finds His Inner Woody Guthrie

• Alex Wroblewski/Sun-Times
• Mayor Rahm miraculously finds some TIF money to hire a few teachers—just in time for next year’s election.

At the end of my recent heart-to-heart with 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar, he made a prediction that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

Sure enough, in the last few weeks Mayor Emanuel has slowly started to discover his inner Woody Guthrie.

The funding comes from the good ol’ TIF slush fund—where, of course, it could have been “found” years ago, had the mayor been looking for it.

There’s a surplus in the TIF slush fund. How much of a surplus is open to interpretation. According to the city’s official books, it’s about $1.7 billion.

The more TIF money the mayor controls, the more power he has—and this mayor loves power even more than I love fried chicken.

All right, school-board members, let’s make a deal . . .