Mass transit deal abuses suburbs</

That sucking sound is the city of Chicago consuming millions of tax dollars that the collar counties "contribute."

For many years, the citizens of Illinois have had lots of tax dollars going to Springfield to be redistributed to a potpourri of schemes, schemers and their friends and relatives in the city.

Over time, I guess we've mostly come to accept the situation because we keep electing the same people, and we like the pretty flower pots. And the newest plot this week

is the increase in sales taxes on us for the Metra and whatever other sundry "doomsday" scenarios happen to loom near. (Did anybody demand an audit of the thing before giving them another cash infusion? Or how about the users paying the increase?)

We've paid up (taxes) and moved to the suburbs for peace and quiet and to raise our kids. But now to further make Chicago "livable," they want to reduce train traffic, so they want to push it out here where we've come to escape all that.

Now we get to pay a plethora of increased taxes and monstrous property taxes on homes that will surely depreciate in value due to the noise, gridlock and inaccessibility to emergency services.

Will our elected representatives stand up for us against the Chicago controlled state of Illinois or will we get the worst of both worlds -- out of control taxes and degraded quality of life?

Christine Boreland

Barrington