Chicago Democrat Wants to Raise Taxes 266%

Mark Brown reports:

When Cook County Commissioner Joan Murphy decides it's time to raise taxes, she doesn't mess around.

Murphy wants to boost the county's sales tax by 2 cents on the dollar, a whopping 266 percent increase that could yield an extra $1 billion a year for county government to spend.

If you're keeping score, that would be the largest tax increase in Cook County history.

"I'm really putting my head on a block with this, believe me," Murphy told me Tuesday.

Well, I should think so, although I wouldn't want her to find herself there all alone.

Murphy says she believes she has the support of Cook County President Todd Stroger, who has scheduled a special county board meeting for Monday to help rush through the proposal in time to beat an Oct. 1 state deadline to allow the tax to take effect at the start of 2008.

Stroger is trying to keep his own head off the chopping block by playing coy and not publicly endorsing Murphy's proposal, although at least one county commissioner, Larry Suffredin, said the president called to ask him to vote for it.

Three more of Stroger's allies, including William Beavers, have signed on with Murphy as co-sponsors.

Comrade Murphy belongs to that racketeering enterprise called the Democrat Party of Cook County.