The Chicago Tribune reports:
Cook County's sales tax would more than triple, pushing Chicago's rate to 11 percent, under a proposal Board President Todd Stroger wants commissioners to consider next week.No word yet on Cook County selling those large land holdings.Also,no word on Cook County getting their workers to work until 65 years old.The above picture is Cook County Finance Chairman John Daley, brother of Chicago's Mayor Daley.John Daley is the son in law of legendary Chicago Mob bookmaker Louie "the Barber" Briatta.
Stroger scheduled a special meeting of the County Board Monday, immediately after a Finance Committee public hearing on a proposal to raise the tax from 0.75 percent to 2.75 percent. Prospects for passage are far from certain among the highly divided board.
Stroger's office would not say Monday whether he supports the increase, but at least one commissioner said he got a call from the president late last week asking him to support the proposal. Administration officials have been talking to commissioners in recent weeks about whether they could support some form of higher taxes to fill a 2008 budget deficit estimated by some officials to be as large as $400 million.
"The president supports ways to increase revenue wherever possible," spokeswoman Ibis Antongiorgi said. "This would be a possible revenue source."
The Stroger administration could not say how much revenue the increase would generate. At the current rate, the county sales tax brings in about $300 million a year. Critics said such a large increase in the rate would send shoppers outside Cook County and would particularly hurt businesses that sell big-ticket items such as cars and appliances.
"I don't think the proponents of this measure recognize what a dramatic impact this big of a sales tax increase would have on the economy," said Commissioner Mike Quigley (D-Chicago), who opposes the proposal.
Commissioner Roberto Maldonado (D-Chicago), a possible swing vote on the 17-member board, said Monday he is leaning strongly against a sales tax increase.
Maldonado said he told Stroger administration officials he was willing to consider some type of tax increase, but that was before Commissioner Joan Murphy (D-Crestwood) introduced the sales tax proposal last week.
Maldonado said he would be more in favor of utility taxes that have been introduced by Commissioner William Beavers (D-Chicago), if senior citizens were exempted.
