I posted Monday about Chicago’s latest badge of dishonor—The City With the Highest Sales Tax—and today, the news showed up in a Wall Street Journal editorial, “Second City No More.”

The piece is chock full of numbers and percentages that tell the tale of Chicago’s love affair with tax dollars better than any words could. Here are a few:

• 10.25% (Chicago’s total sales tax burden after Saturday’s increase)
• $270 million (the amount represented by November 2007’s “fee increase”)
• $530 million (the total brought in by January 2008’s “real estate tax increase”)
• $234 million (Cook County’s deficit)
• $100 million (the amount of possible reforms, noted by the Chicago Civic Federation)

Great news, huh? This makes me so mad.