An audible gasp went out in the breakout room I was in at last month’s pension event cosponsored by The Civic Federation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. That was when a speaker from the Chicago Fed proposed levying, across the state and in addition to current property taxes, a special property assessment they estimate would be about 1% of actual property value each year for 30 years. Evidently, that wasn’t reality-shock enough. This week the Chicago Fed published that proposal formally. It’s linked here. It surely ranks among the most blatantly inhumane and foolish ideas we’ve seen yet....