From the blog for Good Jobs First, “I’m looking for citizen journalists to help investigate and expose Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district abuse in Chicago and Cook County–and then across Illinois. You probably know that TIFs are an often abused mechanism for funneling property taxes to special projects–ostensibly to fight “blight” and put development in under-served areas. In Chicago companies such as Home Depot, United Airlines, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Coca-Cola, UPS, Jewel-Osco, Target and Willis Insurance (who bough the Sears Tower) have all received tens of millions of dollars of property tax gifts via Chicago’s poorly monitored TIF program. So much for blight and the under-served getting development help!” Read the full post