CHICAGO – Amid relentless calls for Gov. Bruce Rauner to “repent” for long overdue state budget cuts using unflattering caricatures and other ridiculous props during recent protests, Chicago’s progressive activists believe they “need to stop playing nice.”

Benedictine University economics professor Ron Baiman attended a massive gathering of Chicago’s liberal elites – social service nonprofit leaders, union officials, and “grassroots” organizers – to mull solutions to the state’s dire financial situation, In These Times reports.

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A total of 125 leaders from 63 non-profits convened June 29 in Chicago to scheme the best ways to tax their way out of trouble, which was the perfect venue for Baiman’s Chicago Political Economy Group to again pitch a financial transaction tax he thinks will save the day.

Baiman has been trumpeting the idea for years, but “things have come together” with massive budget shortfalls looming over the city and state that are convincing Big Labor and its allies to consider virtually any tax-the-rich proposal as a solution, he said.

CTU president Karen Lewis

Baiman said the current budget situation, coupled with recent Occupy movements against the 1 percent, is fueling a new level of class warfare against the city’s top earners, whom the left views as the only means out of the current crisis.

The overarching message of the meeting, according to Baiman: “We need to stop playing nice.”

According to In These Times:

Those assembled heard several revenue proposals. The first focused on tax hikes aimed on wealthy individuals, including a proposed progressive income tax (estimated at raising up to $2.4 billion for the state), a commuter tax ($300 million) and a luxury sales tax (between $553 million and almost $2 billion, depending on services taxed).

A second proposal focused on corporate accountability, including a proposed end to corporate tax loopholes ($334 million), raising corporate income taxes ($770 million), a fee for “bad businesses” that pay low wages ($2.2 billion), a moratorium on corporate handouts and subsidies ($564 million) and reforming Chicago’s tax increment financing program ($457 million in annual revenue in the city).

Proposed banking and financial industry reforms included a financial transaction tax and an end to predatory deals with banks for public financing such as the interest rate swaps Bank of America has arranged with the Chicago Public Schools.

Some at the left-wing pow wow also spent a considerable amount of time lamenting Gov. Bruce Rauner’s attempts to get the state budget back on track with critical cuts to some social services.

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Others, like members of the Chicago Teachers Union, clung to the fantasy that Chicago Public Schools is “broke on purpose,” and its $1 billion shortfall is simply a creative way of attacking the city’s poor.

Regardless, the common theme revolved around getting even with the city’s wealthy with a united call for them to pay their “fair share,” the news site reports.

“Everybody keeps screaming there’s a revenue crisis,” said Ralph Edwards, with the nonprofit ONE Northside. “Just tax the rich.”

The focus on class warfare was similarly evident in the Chicago Teachers Union’s reaction this week to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s appointment of former chief of staff Forrest Claypool as the new CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

CTU President Karen Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times Claypool called her Thursday morning to tell her the news.

“I said: Run, Forrest, run – away from this,” Lewis said. “This would be a mistake for you.”

CTU officials also spoke out against ComEd CEO Frank Clark’s recent appointment as the new chairman of the school board during a press conference at union headquarters today.

CTU VP Jesse Sharkey said in a statement that while the union “is willing to work with anyone,” the Emanuel’s personnel decisions “are telling us a lot about where the mayor is taking our schools, which is off a cliff.

Lewis said she takes offense to Clark serving on the school board because of his role on a commission tasked with closing 50 underutilized public school buildings.

“You sit on the panel that closed 50 schools and you’ve got a charter school with your name on it,” Lewis complained.

Ironically, CTU officials had little to say about two veteran educators promoted by Emanuel to top spots in the CPS administration. Janice Jackson, who previously oversaw principals of several South Side schools, is the district’s new chief education officer, the Sun-Times reports.

Denise Little, formally the chief of networks and Jackson’s supervisor, is now “senior advisor” to Claypool, according to the news site.