With Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner hugging it out like a couple of long-lost frat brothers at an August 31 school-funding-bill ceremony, I suppose we can officially declare their little feud over.
The legislation includes a generous tax credit for gazillionaires who donate money to private and parochial schools. A tax handout for wealthy campaign donors? Man, all is well in the Rahm-Rauner universe! I’m surprised those two didn’t break out one of the expensive bottles of wine they used to share back in their good ol’ bromantic days, when they partied together at Rauner’s Montana ranch.
As far as Rauner’s so-called concerns about bailing out Chicago, the bill was utter capitulation on the part of the governor. If I were one of his true believers, I’d be voting third party in next year’s gubernatorial election.
Rauner highlighted the city’s TIF abuses only to fire up opposition to funding public education. In doing so, he set back the blow-up-the-TIFs cause for years. His allies at the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, issued a dreadful “anti-TIF” cartoon showing a black kid begging a rich white guy for school aid. (Only a bunch of Republicans could make the crusade against TIFs appear racist.)
Why any voters would fall for Rauner’s late-term conversion, I do not know. But then I still can’t believe they fell for his act in the first place. v
