Emanuel dodges question on how he'll pay for Burge reparations

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday dodged questions on how a cash-strapped city grappling with a $20 billion pension crisis can afford to create a $5.5 million “reparations” fund to compensate police torture victims of convicted former Area 2 Commander Jon Burge.

“Your ability to state the obvious with clarity is really good: `We don’t have money: Live at 10,’ ” the mayor joked when a reporter mentioned the financial crisis that has dropped the city’s bond rating to just two levels above junk status.

“Here’s what I would say: This is gonna be paid out over a set of years as we work through the cases. It will be handled in the normal course of budgetary [decisions]. It’s not a one lump sum at one time as we work through each of the individual cases.”

The great moments of one party rule!