Mayor Washington is making another stab at persuading the state legislature to let Chicago levy an income tax on workers who live in the city and suburban residents who work in the city. If he succeeds, it will be only because a lot of legislators want to see if Chicago really is foolish enough to commit municide, or whatever it's called when a city kills itself economically.

The mayor complained that "people who work in the city and sleep in the suburbs" aren't paying their "fair share" of city costs. He didn't provide a balance sheet, but it's more likely that they contribute at least as much to the city's economic well-being as they extract in the form of police, fire, sanitation and social services. His reasoning falls apart in another respect: It's based on the distant past. Once upon a time, most Chicago-area jobs were in the city and most suburban jobholders traveled to Chicago to work. Those days are long gone. Now about two-thirds of Chicago-area jobs are outside the city limits, and the proportion is growing.