Chicago’s political season is hitting full swing, with the mayor’s office, as well as all 50 aldermanic seats, up for election. This means the airwaves will be inundated with charged rhetoric, hyperbole and the all-time favorite political activity: finger-pointing. Amid that cacophony, Mayor Brandon Johnson will be introducing his fourth corporate fund budget proposal for the city.

That’s vitally important because the corporate fund is Chicago’s primary operating budget. It covers the core public services residents expect city government to provide, including everything from police and fire protection, to streets and sanitation services, healthcare and social services. Fiscal difficulties in the corporate fund translate into inadequate service levels, which in turn translate into unhappy residents and a lower quality of life. Unfortunately, for over a decade and through numerous different mayoral administrations, city decision makers have struggled to cobble together a balanced budget for the corporate fund.

For instance, when the current $6.25 billion corporate fund budget was being negotiated, the fund faced a deficit of just under $1.2 billion, or 18.8%. To be clear, that meant Chicago didn’t have 18.8% of the money needed to continue providing the same level of public services it delivered during the prior year. Ultimately, most of that deficit was eliminated through a series of actions that included everything from spending cuts, to generating both recurring revenue through increased taxes and fees and one-time revenue through the declaration of a record $1 billion tax increment financing surplus, the sale of some city assets and the issuance of $166 million in debt. However, all one-time revenue that funds ongoing operations has to be replaced with new dollars in subsequent years to maintain service levels. Oh, and the debt has to be repaid, with interest, creating even more fiscal stress as time passes.

So it shouldn’t shock anyone that in the coming fiscal year, the corporate fund again faces a significant, $882.4 million deficit to fill. It also shouldn’t be surprising that the blame game has already begun. Indeed, it seems everyone with a horse in the mayoral race wants to lay culpability for Chicago’s fiscal woes at Johnson’s feet. But doing so is both inaccurate and counterproductive.

It’s inaccurate because all the evidence shows the recurring budget gaps in the corporate fund are not attributable to poor management decisions made by the current or any of the immediately preceding, mayoral administrations. Instead, they’re the predictable consequence of the corporate fund’s structural deficit. A “structural deficit” exists whenever a government’s revenue is projected to grow at a rate that’s insufficient to both continue funding the same level of public services from year to year, adjusting solely for inflation and pay existing debt service obligations as they become due.

That’s precisely the predicament facing the corporate fund. In fact, over one-third of the corporate fund’s existing revenue sources are incapable of growing with the economy over time, even though the cost of funding services does. Meanwhile state law historically created a pension-funding matrix that allowed Chicago to underfund its pension systems. This effectively let the city use revenue that should’ve funded pensions to instead cover service delivery costs. The net result: For decades Chicagoans consumed public services without having to pay the full cost thereof in taxes, and the city racked up a ton of debt to its pensions.

That practice was ended in 2010, when state legislation created a back-loaded amortization schedule that imposes annually increasing contributions on Chicago to repay the substantial pension debt it incurred. When you couple a back-loaded debt repayment plan with a revenue system that doesn’t grow with the economy, you get a textbook structural deficit.

It’s counterproductive for politicians to waste the public’s time playing the budget blame game, because Chicago’s long-term, structural fiscal problems can only be redressed through long-term, structural reforms. Those reforms are politically difficult to champion. Hence the finger-pointing, which allows candidates to avoid offering real, sustainable solutions, which is hard, and instead pander to voters, which is easy.

A classic example of such counterproductive pandering is the tired, yet oft repeated pledge to not increase property taxes. Sure, everyone hates property taxes, but think about it: corporate fund revenue doesn’t grow with the economy, thereby diminishing Chicago’s capacity to maintain service levels over time. The property tax is the largest revenue source available to Chicago, clocking in at $1.8 billion this year. The vast majority of those dollars cover Chicago’s pension contribution, which will total over $2.94 billion next year, when the advance pension payment is added to the required payment under the back-loaded amortization schedule. Not increasing property taxes would effectively force Chicago to divert even more corporate fund revenue to cover its pension debt — further constraining the city’s capacity to fund core services. That’s not solving problems — it’s making them worse.

Ralph Martire is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank, and the Arthur Rubloff professor of public policy at Roosevelt University.