Shortshanks Craps Gold!

All this money appears as if by magic!

• Arguing that Chicagoans are "suffering" and can't stand to pay any more, Mayor Daley said Thursday he would hold the line on all taxes, fines and fees in 2010 and find another way to plug a revised, $550 million budget gap.

  Two days after the Chicago Sun-Times reported Daley's decision to keep his hand out of taxpayers' pockets, the mayor confirmed that decision and said "everything is on the table" to eliminate the shortfall—except raising taxes.

But how will you do that, oh great mayor of ours?

• The mayor's preliminary 2010 budget assumed that the last $51.3 million of a "rainy day fund" created with parking meter proceeds would be exhausted in 2010.

  The rest of the money was placed in a $325 million mid-term budget relief fund to help balance budgets through 2012 and into a $400 million long-term reserve fund.

  Skyway proceeds were divided into short-, medium and long-term pots.

  As of June 30, the long-term fund had a $515 million balance. The mid-term fund had $122.9 million. And the short-term fund earmarked for "neighborhood and human infrastructure" had just $18 million left.

Gee, that's about $1.3 BILLION just lying around collecting dust. Or interest. And that's after the teachers got 4%, the other unions got 4%, the aldercreatures got 6% and their staff got 5%, and their discretionary funds rose to $1.3 million per aldercreature.

And all as Arbitrator Benn sits down to figure out how much Daley has been lying for the past 2.5 years.