- edenpictures
I applaud Springfield’s gift to our financial exchanges. Sure, it’s a lot of money: the tax breaks the general assembly just passed for CME Group Inc. and for the smaller Chicago Board Options Exchange will cost Illinois $85 million a year.
But running an exchange is expensive business, especially with so many hungry mouths to feed. For CME—the parent of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade—those mouths include mayor Rahm Emanuel, house speaker Mike Madigan, governor Pat Quinn, and alderman and finance chair Ed Burke, big eaters all.