Chicago's Big Government Growth Leads to Financial Ruin: Next Mayor May left holding the Bag

The Chicago Tribune reports on Chicago's financial problems:

•Recession knocked the wind out of many prime sources of city revenue, but the property tax proved recession-proof, and that's the tax voters howl about the most. Yet not a penny of the nearly $800 million in property-tax revenue the city expects to reap next year is earmarked for police, fire or other cash-starved day-to-day city operations. Almost all will go to cover borrowing and pension costs.

•From 2005 to 2009, city expenses grew at a clip more than double the rate of inflation, while the take from tax revenues lagged behind inflation, according to The Civic Federation, a government watchdog. Increasingly, the gap has been bridged with one-time revenue sources — 17 percent of day-to-day operations will be paid for that way in 2011— leaving bigger holes to patch the following year.

Great moments in that one-party town called Chicago!