With state and local governments drowning in fiscal crisis across the nation, Mayor Daley recently illuminated the great blindspot of American governance:

“Just think of all the money that we spend on wars to save the world,” he said at the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards in February. “Today we can’t save America. Why do we always have to go to war, continually, why can’t we rebuild America?” (See John McCarron’s report in the Tribune.)

While local budget cuts and mass layoffs leave vital human needs unmet and drag down prospects for economic recovery, we spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined.  And discussion of this fact is taboo in ruling circles.

Daley also asked what happened to the anti-war demonstrators – were they just against the wars when George Bush was president?

Well, they’re back (never went away, actually) – the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism is holding its annual protest marking the anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq with a rally at the Federal Plaza (5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 18) followed by a march down Michigan Avenue.

CCAWR, which welcomed Mayor Daley’s “conversion” in February, is calling on the Mayor to follow through by demilitarizing peace marches and schools.  Since 2003, peace marches have faced an intimidating array of hundreds of police officers in full riot gear.  And with ten military academies, open doors for military recruiters, and JROTC in nearly half the high schools, CPS is the most militarized school system in the nation, according to activists.  (See AFSC for more on schools.)

Mayor Daley was just kidding when he said he would go after Oregon businesses last week, after the state voted for a modest income tax hike for the top 3 percent  of its wealthiest residents, and for an equally modest reform of the state’s corporate income tax.

At least that’s a what a Daley spokesperson told the Portland Business Journal Friday.

Even as a joke it doesn’t make sense.  What business is going to leave a state with responsible fiscal policies for one like Illinois with a $13 billion deficit?  What businessperson would choose a state with public education and urban transit in crisis, and with social services in danger of closing with the state unable to pay its bills?

Meanwhile, as Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt tells the Oregonian, Chicago has the highest sales tax in the country.  (And even with the minimums just enacted by the voters there, the corporate income tax is still higher here than in Oregon.)

Daley’s “economic development” policy throws millions upon millions of public dollars at multinational corporations to bring a relative handful of jobs here, while cutting funding for neighborhood development groups that support small business, which is the strongest engine of job growth. Meanwhile a maze of fees and regulations makes Chicago “hostile to start-up businesses and self-employed people,” as a study by the Institute for Justice found last year.

Check the list of organizations backing the Vote Yes For Oregon Coalition in its call for what the Nation termed “budget sanity.”  Look on the right side of that list for the many small business endorsers.  They knew the measures that passed were needed to “protect the foundations of our community — our schools, our health and human services, our public safety system,” as the Oregon Center for Public Policy put it.

Progress Illinois wonders why Daley still calls himself a Democrat.  Is he really against progressive taxation?  Last year, when Democrats in Springfield were unsuccessfully wrestling with budget reform, he was out of town, lobbying for the Olympics.

While big corporations line up for city subsidies which can run into tens of millions of dollars each – and TIFs devote just half of 1 percent to local businesses –120 neighborhood economic development groups support thousands of small businesses through a city program which totals just $6.4 million.

That program, supporting local chambers of commerce and industrial retention efforts, has been trimmed steadily for years, and this year the city has chosen it for heavy budget cuts.

A group of aldermen is objecting, and their resolution is on the agenda of Monday’s budget committee hearing.  Details at Newstips.org.

Michael Hawthorne does a great job getting perspectives from mayors and managers of other cities that have looked into — and experienced — leasing municipal water systems; for community and nonprofit sources in several of those cities (and for links to reports from several nonprofits), see Newstips’ October 20 piece, which first discussed the city’s interest in privatizing the water system.

It was on October 21 that the Trib’s editorial board asked Daley about water privatization and he revealed that consultants had recently completed a study of possible asset sales.  “Nothing is off the table,” he said at the time.

Now Jacquelyn Heard tells Hawthorne, “The mayor is not thinking at all now or even in the near future about leasing any more assets.”

That’s because the economic crisis means he’ll have to wait a year or two.

Industry observers we’ve talked to say there are two basic dynamics at work across the country:  cities are utterly desperate for new funding sources, but citizens get crazy when you start talking about selling off their water systems.   For now, however, there’s no way to finance a big deal like that.

For Daley it will depend on how much control over the City Council he has, when the time comes to consider a deal.  That and his own cost-benefit analysis — between a big chunk of money and a likely storm of popular outrage.

That’s why one element of the orginal Newstip deserves a little more attention:  the effort by Illinois PIRG and Ald. Scott Waguespack to pass an ordinance establishing greater transparency and accountability in asset sales and leases.

In a city where budget secrecy is standard, one ward is becoming the first locality in the U.S. to undertake a cutting-edge “good governance” practice: a series of neighborhood assemblies begins tonight (Tuesday, October Novermber 3, at St. Margaret Mary Church, 7311 N. Claremont); ultimately ward residents will vote on allocating next year’s aldermanic menu funds.  More at Newstips.

Yesterday Mayor Daley told the Chicago Tribune editorial board that he recently met with consultants who presented him with options for future privatization deals.  He wouldn’t give details but said, “Nothing is off the table.”

Daley said he would not answer a question about whether he’s considering privatizing the city’s water system — a prospect raised here on Tuesday — “because it would stir up too much controversy,” as the Trib puts it.

Coincidentally, La Voz de los Abajo, a local Honduran solidarity group whose efforts were covered here in July, is showing Until the Last Drop, a new documentary about water privatization in El Salvador, tonight at 7 p.m. at Carnes Asadas, 4014 W. 26th .

Director Jason Wallach will speak.  (See Kari Lydersen’s review at In These Times’ Working blog.)  The event will raise funds to help send a local delegation of human rights observers to Honduras.

An industry publication reports Chicago’s water department is considering a lease of its water and wastewater system; Newstips looks at related stories around the region — and at an effort to improve accountability in the sale of public assets in Chicago.

A protest by South Chicago residents against installation of new parking meters enters its sixth week on Monday, with an around-the-clock vigil now under way. 

Supporters say new meters would create a hardship for low-income clients of Centro Communitario Juan Diego.  And store owners are afraid they would drive away business.

Meanwhile opponents of parking meter rate hikes will rally at City Hall on Wednesday.  More at Newstips.