As is well known, Illinois has been the home of many a corrupt politician over the years. But what isn't generally recognized is that one of the reasons that's true is the huge number of targets of opportunity for the corrupt to exploit; the largest number of local taxing bodies in America. There are more than 7,000 of them - 2,000 more than their closest rival Pennsylvania. And as Mike Lawrence, writing in the Chicago Tribune explains, the taxpayers who largely created these entities are keeping very poor track of what they are doing and resist reform: "Illinois has high property taxes in part because we have more units of local government with independent property taxing authority than other states. Units of government are not held individually accountable, nor do they take responsibility for the overall tax burden," says J. Thomas Johnson, president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois. Johnson is chairman of the Taxpayer Action Board, appointed this spring by Gov....(Read Full Post)