Deja vu all over again?
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is trying to muster enough support to raise the sales tax by a penny on the dollar — an about-face on the key issue that propelled her into office.
The money would help shore up the pension system for county government workers and balance next year’s budget. But getting nine of the 17 commissioners to vote for the sales tax hike could prove challenging, given the enormous backlash that unfolded in 2008 after the County Board increased the sales tax by 1 percentage point.
The move by then-Board President Todd Stroger led to his ouster in the 2010 Democratic primary, as Preckwinkle emerged from a crowded field after pledging to eliminate what remained of the unpopular tax hike. Preckwinkle ran a campaign ad in which she shook hands with an actor portraying Benjamin Franklin. […]
If Preckwinkle can line up the votes, she would introduce the tax increase in early July and try to get it approved by the end of the month, sources said. The tax hike would generate more than $300 million a year starting in 2016, when the county will face rising debt payments, increased payroll costs and possibly increased pension fund payments.
* Greg Hinz…
Ms. Preckwinkle’s office declined all comment on her decision, which was first reported by the Chicago Tribune. But in a statement, it stopped far short of denying the action, saying that her next budget will be “particularly challenging” and that her finance team “is hard at work looking at a number of scenarios for coping with this difficult situation.”
Three county officials who asked not to be named confirmed that the effort is under way. Another official, Commissioner John Fritchey, D-Chicago, predicted very strong opposition.
While the county’s budget situation has tightened, “The president has to be cognizant of the fact that she was elected on the basis of a promise to roll back Stroger’s sales tax,” Fritchey told me. “It’s hard for me to envision a scenario” under which he’d vote yes, Fritchey said.
Another commissioner said raising the sales tax “is certainly more palatable than raising the property tax. But is it nine votes palatable? I don’t know.”
That source said Preckwinkle “has asked us to keep it quiet while she tries to put it together,” with a vote possible as soon as next month.
* Sun-Times…
When Preckwinkle ran against Stroger in 2010, she pledged to repeal the sales tax increase, and easily won the board presidency.
“. . . I’ll repeal the whole Stroger sales tax. You’ve earned your pennies. I’ll save them for you,” she said in one of her TV ads.
The last portion of the sales tax was rolled back at the beginning of 2013.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:04 am:
Funny thing about money and math and budgets…
You can talk all day about what you want to do, or what you think you can do, but math is math is math…
- Emanuel Can't - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:07 am:
Cook County remains bloated. And Preckwinkle has had uncritical support from the media. This tax hike is easier for her politically than cutting.
- Truthteller - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:11 am:
Imagine that instead of running on a platform of cutting the sales tax, Preckwinkle had campaigned to retain the tax but dedicate it to paying off the pension debt. That would have been the responsible thing to do. Who cuts revenue when you have outstanding debt with no revenue stream to cover it? Not anyone who is responsible.
In the long run, it’s going to cost taxpayers more.
- James - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:25 am:
Toni’s very practical and she’s got more guts than Rahm. She knows there’s no help coming from the State and she’s on her own with the County. Rahm will need to do the same thing, but he’ll be in denial for a long time, because he still needs to be loved. At this point in her career, Toni doesn’t. She’ll just do what’s necessary to fix things.
- Decker - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:27 am:
Well, heck….if I had known this, I would have just voted for Stroger again.
LOL!
- qualified someone nobody sent - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:33 am:
Toni is facing reality. GA isn’t giving her the pension “reform” she wants. Some County unions voted for the “reform” out of fear of the State’s law prior to the Supremes rejection of the States’ methodology of the “reform” used. No chance the unions go for it, or anything like it, again. Therefore, she’s getting ahead of them game and increasing revenue, when you need more, makes perfect sense to me. The County, like the City of Chicago, didn’t annually raise property taxes when they needed to. Now they need more money, what a surprise. Statesmen are needed here, not someone posturing for the next election. Mr. Raunger should pay attention to the leadership showed by Toni and find a way to compromise and get the revenue the State needs so badly.
- Truthteller - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:33 am:
If Preckwinkle just did “what’s necessary to fix things”,she wouldn’t have cut the tax in the first place. She decided that she could ride the tax cut horse to victory. Same strategy used by Rauner and Republicans throughout the country.
Sad part is she probably could have beaten Stroger without it, but was playing to her pals on the Trib editorial board
- Arizona Bob - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:45 am:
It doesn’t take guts to raise taxes in Cook County. It takes guts to stand up to all the patronage workers, unions, and crony contractors feeding at the county taxpayer trough. She’s not willing to do that because they’re the ones who keep getting her elected.
Now having dealt with other big city county operations, I have to say that Cook County is one of the least customer centered, inefficiently run big city operations in the nation. For years the assessors office couldn’t get the tax bill out on time, then all of a sudden they’re punctual once a new guy is in charge. The Recorder’s office is a patronage cesspool, and BOR is as crooked as they come, especially considering the recent allegations of appeal “fixing” by analysts. What ever became of that case, anyway? Madigan makes a very good living off of incorrect assessments of commercial property, or getting unfair re-assessments from the office. Dart’s police department? He’s assigning one officer per unincorporated area per township, and he lets traffic backups of miles whenever a light on a county road light fails and doesn’t put someone there to temporarily direct traffic. Try finding out where your townships officer is, and the dispatcher gets rude and won’t tell you or will admit they’re not even in your township. While I don’t think they’re involved in car theft rings and murders anymore (remember Diane Masters?)I have little reason to believe the culture has changed much.
Cook county government is a mess. Asking for more money to sustain that mess without real reform is an insult to the county voters.
- MrJM - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:58 am:
“Cook County remains bloated.”
Citation needed.
– MrJM
- LizPhairTax - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 8:59 am:
But she and Ben Franklin shook on it!
- siriusly - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:02 am:
Give her a break, she did repeal the Stroger tax. Promise fulfilled. That was two years ago, that’s ancient history.
Or she could ask the Rauner administration to let her keep growing the County-run HMO “CountyCare” which is her profit center.
Maybe it can grow big enough to put the privately run HMOs out of business and we will finally have government run healthcare for all and a budget balancer as well.
- chi - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:05 am:
=It doesn’t take guts to raise taxes in Cook County.=
That’s a nice stereotype, besides the fact that it doesn’t jive with recent history. If doing the exact thing that got your predecessor knocked out of office doesn’t take guts, I don’t know what does.
Jeez Louise.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:14 am:
What I see here is what happens when an incumbent weakened by gaining power through nepotism, (Stroger), makes an important decision regarding funding and tax revenue - and when an incumbent, elected and holding more governing credibility, makes an important decision regarding funding and tax revenue.
Another difference between Stroger and Preckwinkle is timing. Stroger raised his county tax when Cook County economics seemed to be still on a downturn. He also suffered from being the first of the two elected officials to reach this conclusion, make it public, and enact it. Stroger would not have faced as severe a loss of public support had he handled this issue differently.
There are those who believe that when tax revenue is needed to be increased, it is best to do this quickly while the economic fears within the governing body are looking for a quick fix. We also saw this approach when the Temporary State Income Tax increase was enacted during the Lame Duck session in the General Assembly during the Quinn Administration.
This just may not be the best approach to take anymore. Citizens have been conditioned to consider taxes as would a consumer, not as a citizen. Consequently, raising a tax as had been traditionally done over the past few generations - quick and silent - depends upon a different way of thinking. Consumer market values dictates a different approach to raising taxes.
When today’s consumers face an increase in their cellular phone bill, they are encouraged to change carriers in a competitive industry. When they face an increase in their cable bill, they are encouraged to switch to satellite and drop cable. When a discount store wants your business, they advertise a lower price for a similar product. After generations of being told that governments should be run like a business, these are the models today’s consumer/citizens think of regarding their taxes.
Consequently, public officials need to do a better job in selling any tax increase within today’s market value society. A crisis atmosphere isn’t good enough anymore. When we hear people telling public officials that they don’t want to see a tax increase in order to pay for pensions, they are thinking like consumers and considering the value of someone else’s pension to be a bad value. They are not thinking like citizens.
I don’t see this changing soon. Consumer market mentalities have been deemed to be the right thing to do in the 21st Century. What governments now need to do is sell themselves, using market value language. If I were Preckwinkle, I would start presenting the value of living in Cook County. I would prepare Chicagoans for the reality that their county government is struggling to pay for what everyone in Chicago gets at the County level. I wouldn’t have waiting until crisis-time, to unveil a tax increase.
In today’s society, waiting until a crisis to sell a tax increase is a bad value. It is an admittance that a government isn’t functioning, and that this incompetence will cost consumers more for the same crisis-laden government.
Think value, sell value. Get off the “crisis” kick!
- Very Fed Up - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:16 am:
Already have about the highest sales tax in the nation..just will need to redouble efforts to make larger expenses elsewhere. Pulling the same Pat Quinn tactic of waiting till just after an election to push for an increase.
- chi - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:20 am:
One of the worst parts of a sales tax increase is its regressive nature. It would have been really nice if a referendum for a progressive income tax had gotten on the ballot before Governor Gridlock got into office.
- Cassandra - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:20 am:
So, hmm, what taxes are coming us here in Cook County. Chicagoans could be looking at a property tax increase, although Mayor Rahm still won’t say it. Ms. Preckwinkle is looking at a sales tax increase in Cook. And many believe that the end game at the state Capitol will have both parties signing on to a restoration of Pat Quinn’s income tax increase. That’s a lot of taxes for us folks who are also supposed to hold up the economy by buying stuff. The rich don’t keep the economy going-not enough of ‘em. The much larger middle class does–and we are fading, even w/out these various runs on our wallets.
- Very Fed Up - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:24 am:
Don’t hold your breath chi. A progressive income tax would pass in a large landslide if voters were ever allowed to vote on it but for reasons unknown democrats in this state prefer regressive tax increases whenever new revenue is needed.
- walker - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:29 am:
John Fritchey was the main force behind the Illinois House bill which enabled the Cook County Board to reduce this tax. He’s not doing a “turnaround” on this one.
AB: You’re seeing thru some strange glasses, when you say it’s easy to raise taxes in Cook. A lot of current Cook elected officials won specifically on a lower tax platform, including Tony and half of her Board.
- Hit or Miss - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:40 am:
===That was two years ago, that’s ancient history.===
Cook County also has a pension problem and has had for a number of years. Attempting to say Cook County could cut the sales tax two years ago and now needs to increase the sales tax to fund pensions does not compute with me. Over the years since the sales tax the pension math has always pointed to a funding issue. I judge the sales tax cut to be almost totally a political move to help get elected with little or no relation to the underling pension math. Two years may be long in political terms for elected officials who are concerned about being elected/re-elected but for pension math it is not.
- The Captain - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:41 am:
You’re likely looking at a tax increase to balance the state budget, a tax increase to get CPS out of its mess and now a tax increase at the county. None of those votes will be easy but it will definitely be easier to go first than to go last so if the tax increase at the county is inevitable it’s best to get it done ahead of the City and the State.
- Soccermom - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:53 am:
Could we please just join the 21st century and expand the sales tax to consumer services? I have to pay sales tax if I buy hair dye at the store; why don’t I pay sales tax when I pay someone else to put it on my hair?
- The Doc - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:13 am:
What Soccermom said.
- Very Fed Up - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:16 am:
VanillaMan the problem is what the increases are being sold for. Chicago residents are being told their income tax needs to go up largely for state worker pensions. Then their property taxes need to go up largely for CTU pensions. Now everything we buy will be more expensive for Cook County worker pensions. There is a point where people push back to pay for pensions largely only available for government workers.
- A guy - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:20 am:
===I have to pay sales tax if I buy hair dye at the store;===
S-mom, I covered my ears for this. Everything about you is entirely natural in my book. lol
- anon - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:21 am:
Soccermom: your hair dresser paid tax on it when (s)he bought it & the cost was included in what you paid. No free lunch.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:25 am:
Chicago residents are being told their income tax needs to go up largely for state worker pensions.
I can’t think of a worse way to sell a tax increase than this. It demonizes people who held up their end of a contractual bargain and spent their careers serving the public, it makes the elected officials look powerless and incompetent, and it adds no value to those who would be paying it.
Consumer mentality doesn’t work when dealing with governments because governments provide to everyone based on their rights as citizens, not consumers.
- Very Fed Up - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 10:34 am:
Politicians can try to sell this however they want. However the myriad of tax increases coming our way all come back to funding pensions that are unavailable to the rest of us. Push enough times and you end up with a very liberal state voting in someone like Rauner.
- Glass half full - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 11:03 am:
Seems Todd Stroger tried to sell “honesty” by telling the voters this was an absolute critical need for County Government…..and people wonder why politicians lie!
- Arizona Bob - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 11:14 am:
@chi
=That’s a nice stereotype, besides the fact that it doesn’t jive with recent history. If doing the exact thing that got your predecessor knocked out of office doesn’t take guts, I don’t know what does.
Jeez Louise.=
She didn’t need to come out against the tax to beat Stroger. Politically, he was already “dead man walking”. It’s not like there was really any tax cutting Republican as an adversary, and they wouldn’t have gotten elected even if there were.
- Precinct Captain - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 11:53 am:
==- chi - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:05 am:==
It’s hard for some Arizonans to keep up with Cook County government news.
- Amalia - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 12:04 pm:
she’s not running again, right? at least that is the rumor as of several weeks ago, including candidate ramping up. so that would mean she’ll just do what she needs to do to get things in some order.
meanwhile, there’s a list of other things she has done which have taken her from the reformer column. actually all you have to do is follow her many, many oks of most things Berrios to know that she is not the Toni we thought she was.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 12:28 pm:
Who exactly did you think she was? She voted for $1,000,000,000.00 ( that should be 1Billion) in new taxes during her Aldermanic career ….never met a tax she didn’t like under Daley2….never actually fit the definition of Ben Franklin or “reformer”
- Glass half full - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 12:29 pm:
12:28 was me…..sorry
- Formerly Known As... - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 1:18 pm:
Possibly raising city, county and state taxes on Chicagoans?
While their property taxes are being reassessed in 2015?
Quadruple whammy.
- nona - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 3:23 pm:
The county of Cook has frozen its property tax levy for more than 20 years. Why doesn’t she simply repeal the freeze and enact small annual increases? Re.ember that Chicago homeowners enjoy the state’s lowest property tax.
- Percival - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 3:53 pm:
Income tax hike + property tax increase + sales tax increase = an incensed electorate. But the Democrats own this crisis and deserve every bit of the blame.
- Cook County Commoner - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 4:04 pm:
According to a survey of 1,000 adults released by Bankrate.com on Tuesday, nearly one in three (29%) American adults have no emergency savings at all. What’s more, only 22% of Americans have at least six months of emergency savings — the lowest level since Bankrate began doing the survey.
I suspect the Illinois numbers are worse.
Does anyone in gov consider the ability of the taxpayers to absorb what seems to be an inevitable triple play of new taxes at the local, county and state level?
- austinman - Tuesday, Jun 23, 15 @ 9:55 pm:
“glass half full” your exactly right Todd told the truth, and got run out of office for it. This lady has raised almost every county tax possible, nothing left but either property, rental car, hotel or sales tax. Anyone that can do math knows you cant reduce a tax that brings in over 300m a year and think you can survive long without it. She has done the same type of patronage that Todd had done minus relatives (that was already at the county before he got there). I have been telling people for years the county cant survive without that tax, the funny part is had she kept that tax in place she would have a surplus…