With the economy slowing down in the Chicago land area,you'd think raising taxes wouldn't be a good idea.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
A drink at the bar, a fast-food meal and back-to-school shopping are among those things about to get a bit more expensive in Cook County.
Late Friday, sources said, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger struck a deal with board members, who early Saturday approved a 1 percent increase in the sales tax - driving Chicago's overall sales tax to double digits at 10.25 percent, easily among the highest of any big city.
And it will be enacted just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
After months of perhaps the county's most contentious budget battles ever and the looming threat of court intervention in the budget debate, the county's $3.2 billion budget is set to be balanced by hiking the county's share of the sales tax from .75 to 1.75 percent.
A proposal to double the parking tax died.
The 1 percent sales tax hike will bring in more than $400 million in new cash every year to the county. This year, it will bring in about $71 million.
The county faces a $234 million deficit.
The influx of money will likely help Stroger avoid having to seek a tax increase in 2009 and possibly in 2010, when he's up for re-election.
The increased parking tax is expected to bring in $35 million a year.
Stroger had been one vote away from hiking the sales tax to 2.75 percent and he said he'd refuse to come down below setting it at 2 percent.
But after a day of heavy negotiating - including much intervention by labor leaders like Dennis Gannon, of the Chicago Federation of Labor, and elected officials like Sheriff Tom Dart, the deal appeared to be done.
Sources said Stroger was willing to barter, but advisors close to him kept talking him out of it. That led to shouting matches and bruised egos on both sides. Finally, a breakthrough came Friday afternoon.
The swing vote to pass the budget was set to come from Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who campaigned for state's attorney on a boast that he had "stood up to Todd Stroger's tax increases," and as of Friday night, his website still quotes him as saying "at this point, I see no need for any increase in taxes."
But Suffredin's willingness to deal came after Stroger agreed to give up control of the county hospital system - a patronage dumping ground for decades' worth of politicians - to an outside panel of professionals through 2010, sources said.
The compromise proposal calls for 15 officials from the medical, civic and labor community to pick 20 nominees to a hospital governing board. From there, Stroger will pick nine, to be approved by the county board.
Suffredin says the new board will bring true independence and professionalism to the hospital system and limit patronage opportunities.
Suffredin, while admitting a sales tax may not be "the best economic policy," noted it's half of what Stroger wanted, and said the hospital deal is a good trade-off for a 1 percent sales tax hike.
But business leaders and others predicted immediate negative ramifications.
"Chicago now has the unfortunate notoriety of having the highest sales tax in the country, and our region will now be a more expensive place to visit, live, work and operate a business," said Jerry Roper, head of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. "The people of our region should be outraged."
Suffredin scoffed at that.
Sunil Garig
explains who Obama supports among Cook County Democrats:
there is the Cook County government, a $3 billion operation that most taxpayers don't think about but which provides necessary and critical services to the indigent, particularly health care. In 2006, the Cook County Board President, John Stroger, faced near-daily chronicling of the incompetence, scandal, and patronage under his administration. These revelations included not only the typical employment of family members and friends, but more disturbingly what one Chicago newspaper referred to as a "catalogue of horrors" at a County hospital and what another uncovered at the Juvenile Detention Center where staff encouraged fights among the youth in "the gladiator room". Although normally untouchable, challenging Stroger was a formidable reform candidate, Forrest Claypool, who had been endorsed by every major paper in Chicago. This 'machine versus reform' race provided Obama with a seemingly tailored opportunity to demonstrate his new brand of politics and yet, although Claypool was a senior advisor to him during his Senate race, Obama chose not antagonize the machine and remained silent throughout the campaign, even after Stroger suffered a debilitating stroke a week before the election. Following Stroger's victory (52% to 48%), local committeemen selected Stroger's son, Todd, to replace him on the general election ballot, and despite general voter outrage over this cynical act of nepotism, Obama immediately embraced Todd Stroger, calling him a "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government." To no one's surprise, since winning the general election, Todd Stroger has hired a plethora of family members and friends, while slashing essential positions and services, including nurses and law enforcement officials, and proposing massive tax increases. When asked about the situation at the County under Todd Stroger, Obama said he was not following it, something he apparently has the luxury to ignore.
To put things in perspective on how high taxes are in Chicago:
How Chicago compares to other U.S. cities based on the sales tax increase set to be passed Friday night.
* Chicago 10.25 percent (includes RTA increase in April and Cook County's)
* Memphis 9.25 percent
* New Orleans 9 percent
* Denver 8.6 percent
* San Francisco 8.5 percent
* New York 8.375 percent
* Los Angeles 8.25 percent
* Houston 8.25 percent
* Dallas 8.25 percent
* San Jose 8.25 percent
Source: Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce
You'll notice the Sun-Times article forgets to mention that only Democrats voted for the giant tax increase.Why are Cook County Democrats so darn greedy? I guess you have to be when you represent the interest of government workers who can retire in their 40's.We shouldn't forget with the new giant tax increase comes over
1000 new Cook County government jobs! (Stay tuned to Newsalert,in the near future we will be posting a long blog entry on the Chicago Democrats and the Chicago Mob).
