Huh?

Here's another strange proposal from Ricketts and the Cubs brass, courtesy of Fred Mitchell and David Kaplan of the Chicago Tribune.

We hear the Cubs are quietly working to amend their proposal to renovate Wrigley Field. In simple terms, the team would match its previous tax payments to the city — $16 million in 2009 — while keeping any tax revenue above the base for park renovations and perhaps construction of the long-planned triangle building. Once the team has what it plans built, the Cubs argue the additional business will increase taxes collected.

Now the last time I checked the real world taxes were something the government, any government, assessed against income or receipts or the value of property and it was not something that is generally negotiated just because it is no longer your property, seeing as it is a claim asserted by the government against your property or assets. As I understand this proposal, Ricketts is suggesting that he will simply appropriate anything he owes the city in excess of $16 million and use it for whatever he wants.

An interesting concept. Following this reasoning, I could simply tell the Assessor's office that I really need to build a new deck for my condo, so I'll just skip that second installment on my property taxes this year and call things even.