Rahm Emanuel is beginning to bear a striking resemblance to Al Pacino in his turn as Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, the money and power hungry crime boss from Dick Tracy.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Thursday's Tribune lead story reporting his union and budget calculations. Last year, Rahm went down to Springfield and talked big about a "day of reckoning," in the hopes of dismantling the police and fire unions. This year, one of his aides must have opened up a calendar and pointed to the date of his looming re-election primary. Now, he's offered what may well be the contents of a fortune cookie: "Reform, revenue, and time all go together" as a way to untangle the pension mess the government has put unions in.
No city employee with a pension should leave their retirement up to the whims of fortune cookie finance. While Rahm is busy meditating on his next non-solution, Machine buddy John Cullerton calls for a delay in "big" pension payments until 2022, along with a "series of small property tax increases beginning in 2018." Let's see, delay property tax increases until after the 2015 election cycle (must get those votes!) and continue the habit of pension avoidance until the election cycle after that (must use the money for my pet projects!).
What Rahm meant to say was, "Reform, revenue, and time all go together to keep the unions nervous and me in office!"
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