Who Doesn't Like a Day Off?

It's "Not Quite Labor Day, but Close Enough" in Chicago on Monday. Most civic employees get a nice late summer's day off. Unfortunately, they're also taking a "wage vacation," too. The city's calling it Reduced-Service Day, but it essentially means, except for emergency services, the city's closing down to save a few bucks. It's doing the same thing on the Friday after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve (that's always a popular move--cut employees' paychecks just in time for Christmas), and its supposed to save us all $8.3 million.

When you look around the country at other states and municipalities and their problems, moves like this are only the tip of the iceberg. Although a repeat of the Great Depression doesn't look as likely as it might've a few months ago, we've still got a long way to go to pull out of our financial mess. Telling people to stay home three days a year isn't going to provide the edge we need to balance a budget. The city and the county have already been raising taxes. They can keep on doing that, but not without consequences. Cut services? That'll happen one way or another if they can't afford them.

But whatever we do, we'd better not set aside the Olympic bid.