Race to raise taxes
Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As expected, Todd Stroger didn’t have enough votes to pass his two-point sales tax hike yesterday…
A clearly frustrated Cook County Board President Todd Stroger failed Monday to cobble together the votes needed to hike the sales tax.
Stroger called commissioners who shot it down “part-time workers” who don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation and didn’t do the job that “should’ve been done.” He’s now headed back to the drawing board to fill a $307 million hole in the county’s $3 billion budget. […]
Rather than see the sales tax hike shot down, Commissioner Joan Murphy moved for it to be deferred until Oct. 16, allowing time for what Commissioner Forrest Claypool called “behind-the-scenes, closed-door arm-twisting.”
Stroger said he’ll engage in “the art of compromise.”
* And what will that compromise be? Perhaps a scaled-back sales tax increase, which is probably what he should’ve done all along. Stroger may have received bad advice on the whip count, which could have prompted him to go ahead with yesterday’s vote on the two-point increase.
But, the vote was 8-8, so Stroger could have cast the tiebreaking vote if he was serious about this tax increase. He didn’t, and instead said he would use that tiebreaker power if a smaller increase met the same fate.
* Mark Brown has more…
“I don’t think they’ll bring it back,” [Commissioner John Daley] said afterward when I asked what position he had taken. Stroger later explained that the rush is over now that the county missed Monday’s legal deadline that would have allowed it to begin collecting the sales tax Jan. 1, 2008.
Daley said he expects the Stroger administration will switch its focus to proposed new county utility taxes on natural gas, electricity and telecommunications, which he predicted will face court challenges.
“I told them they didn’t have the votes” on the sales tax, Daley said, which prompted me to again ask whether he was one of the votes “they” did or didn’t have. He still wouldn’t give me a direct answer.
“When it comes back, I think it’s going to be changed completely from what it is today,” he said instead.
* Meanwhile, Mayor Daley appears to be in a foot race with Stroger to get his tax hikes approved before the county does…
Mayor Daley on Monday served up a pick-your-poison menu of tax increases — including the largest property tax hike in Chicago history — and asked aldermen to choose enough of them to fill a $193 million budget gap.
The $108 million property tax increase would cost the owner of a $200,000 home roughly $57 more a year. […]
The entire menu would raise $319 million. The city needs $193 million to fill a gap now $24 million lower than initial estimates, officials said.
* More…
Options include increasing the city’s tax on a six-pack of beer by 4 cents and on wine by 2 cents a bottle; raising the city tax on gasoline by up to 10 cents a gallon; creating a 10-cent-a-bottle tax on bottled water; increasing the cost of vehicle stickers for sport-utility vehicles; quadrupling parking-meter rates in neighborhoods to $1 an hour; raising the sales tax on restaurant bills; making penalties heavier for parking-ticket scofflaws; and raising the 911 phone surcharge, according to City Hall sources.
Separately, water and sewer fee hikes also are a possibility.
* Related…
* Rampant patronage from city hall?
* City hiring cases flood court
* Tribune Editorial: If Stroger won’t lead…
* Zorn: Todd Stroger and the two percent solution
- GOP'er - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:10 am:
This lust for tax raising is a strong argument AGAINST Chicago getting the Olympics.
Imagine what would be to come, given that city and county government can’t live within their means right now.
- Skeeter - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:30 am:
Any info as to who voted for and against the tax increase?
Can we assume that the five Rs voted against it (Gorman, Goslin, Peraica, Silvestri, Scheider). The three others against? Claypool, Quigley, and Suffredin? Can Suffredin really vote in favor of a tax increase if he wants to be elected county-wide in 2008?
It will be interesting to see where Quigley goes on this. He tends to start out strong, but tends not to be there in the end.
- Angry Chicagoan - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:30 am:
I have no problem with Daley’s tax increase proposals. None at all. City property taxes are low, low, low. Stroger is a very different story - I do not trust county government at all at this point, not after they gave the full COLA adjustment to non-union salaries even when they knew what trouble they were in. With both the city and county I want to see some better planning of resources; the city has some room on property taxes but even so, six or seven more years of this would eat up that room completely. The county already has hit the wall. We have to start setting some big priorities as to what services need to be fully funded or boosted, what can be totally eliminated, and what can be privatized; across-the-board budget trimming doesn’t do it any more and simply results in crummy services.
I agree with GOP’er on the Olympics to a point; the vast majority of Olympic candidate cities need a “downpayment” of some kind from their state, province or country, and for Chicago in the US, that means the state of Illinois, a scary thought indeed. However, I view it as an opportunity; an opportunity to deal with stuff we’ve been putting off like transit improvements, with a big tourist and business payoff at the end. If the cash flow gets ugly this is one thing — due to the large back-loaded nature of the payoff — that would be appropriate for public private partnerships such as DBF schemes (design-build-finance) on infrastructure that typically back-load the costs — in this case expenses and revenues come in at about the same time.
- Angry Chicagoan - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:32 am:
By the way, why did Maldonado bottle on the tax vote? He ought to have been a sure vote against after what he was saying. Did one of Stroger’s minions get to him or something?
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:38 am:
Maldonado was a no vote. From the Tribune…
===In addition to Claypool, standing in firm opposition to the tax increase Monday were the board’s five Republicans and Chicago Democrats Roberto Maldonado and Mike Quigley.
===
- Independent - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:44 am:
Same Trib article explained Suffredin’s no vote:
“The 17-member board was split 8-8 on the sales tax increase, with commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) staying out of the debate because he’s researching whether he has a conflict of interest. Suffredin is a lobbyist, and one of his clients, the Illinois Restaurant Association, testified in opposition to the tax increase.
Suffredin said he plans to meet with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and hopes he is cleared to vote on the tax if need be. Suffredin said he could support a smaller hike in the sales tax, cautioning that he considered it a last resort and saying he would prefer the county first look elsewhere for new revenue.”
- Independent - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:45 am:
Poor phrasing. I meant to write Suffredin did not cast a vote.
- Independent - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:47 am:
Actually no one voted as the vote was postponed, and I need more coffee.
- Super Mega - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 10:56 am:
Instead of tax increases, why not reduce the county and city payrolls by 5%, mainly taking their cuts from political appointments?
That should save both entities plenty of money.
- JGatz - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 11:07 am:
One only needs to attend a Cook County Board meeting to realize where cuts need to be made. The armies of department heads, deputy department heads and deputies of the deputies lumber in and do nothing for 6 hours. Its not cronyism, its just inept leadership at many levels.
- nitpicker - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 11:21 am:
But, the vote was 8-8, so Stroger could have cast the tiebreaking vote if he was serious about this tax increase. He didn’t, and instead said he would use that tiebreaker power if a smaller increase met the same fate.
That’s actually incorrect, Rich. President Stroger can only cast the tie-breaking vote of the full County Board. If the Board is meeting as the Finance Committee–through which all tax proposals must first pass–Stroger has no vote and cannot break ties. That’s why he didn’t break the deadlock.
- Anon - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 11:47 am:
From the Tribune to the Reform Bloc on the Cook County Board:
“You be the leaders. Instruct your chiefs of staff to brainstorm for an hour, an afternoon, a day, whatever. Ask them to write a positive agenda, perhaps 10 Ways to Prevent a Tax Increase.”
Excuse me, but Peraica did exactly that TWO YEARS AGO, and even called it a “Ten Point Plan,” and it was offered to oppose the last big buget fight against Stroger, Sr.
As usual, the Chicago Political Media was out to lunch that day, and hasn’t made it back to the office even now.
- Levois - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 2:07 pm:
The stories about this who raising the sales tax in Cook are interesting. It’s just unfortunate that so many people have to pay for all the inefficiencies that are purported to exist at the county.
- Garp - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 3:01 pm:
Tax increases might be easier to swallow if they were not necessary because of corruption.
Mass transit needs more taxes but they have not bothered to inspect the tracks for years. What were they doing, playing cards?
Daley needs more money when at least 12 million of the shorfall is caused by fixing jobs.
The governor is getting jobs for Congressman’s kids so he can run a penal cathouse.
Stroger’s chief aid is blowing his brains out while under investigation.
On and on and on.
They really are reaching a point where things are so screwed up that no one will want to live here.
- South Side Mike - Tuesday, Oct 2, 07 @ 5:48 pm:
Let me get this straight. Daley suggests $.04 for a 6-pack of beer and $.10 on a single bottle of water?!! Does that mean a 24-pack of Aquafina will have a special $2.40 tax on it? That’s absurd.
Does anyone here know if the $.10/bottle water tax is legal? States and municipalities can tax cigarettes and alcohol, and have distinguished between food and non-food. But I have never heard of a single product singled out like bottled water. If you were to argue that plastic is the issue, why not 20oz soft drinks, too?