Read Ritchie’s Lips: “More Taxes”

16 November 2007

CHICAGO – Let’s see if I’ve got this right.  Mayor Richard M.  Daley is demanding an additional $293 million in taxes, fees and fines for his 2008 budget to address a $196 million deficit.  Curiously, his budget clocks in at $5.9 billion.  Not $6 billion.  As if the point-nine is going to convince us to buy this $6 billion jalopy without test driving it or experiencing sticker shock.

No sooner did the mayor drop this bombshell when Cook County Board President Todd Stroger requested a whopping $888 million in new taxes a week later.  If I’m not mistaken, that’s an additional $1.18 billion in new taxes, fines and fees for City and County governments.  And that doesn’t include the State of Illinois’ CTA, Metra and Pace regional sales tax currently under consideration or the Chicago Board of Education’s approved $74.2 million property tax levy.

Largest Property Tax Increase In City History
Mayor Daley’s proposal includes a 15 percent jump in property taxes—$108 million—bringing the city’s property tax total to $821 million.  That’s the largest property tax-increase in the City’s history according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The mayor’s budget also includes a $44 million increase in water fees and another $21 million in sewer fees.  Plus there’s a doubling of the monthly phone fee to $48 million.  This $2.50 per phone line monthly tax is allegedly intended to help fund the city’s 911 center.  I recommend calling the center and telling the dispatcher you’re being taxed to death by a red-faced, indignant mayoral intruder.

Despite the fact that Chicago gas prices are consistently among the highest in the nation, the mayor wants to generate another $53 million by doubling the city’s gasoline tax to 10 cents a gallon.

Don’t forget the extortion fines and fees.  By that I mean fines and fees that have little to do with public safety and accommodation, but are, in effect, merely taxes intended to shake down more money from hard working taxpayers.

These include increases for expired neighborhood parking from $30 to $50, doubling of the snow route ban to $60, parking outside of diagonal markings from $25 to $50, a 33 percent  increase in city stickers for SUVs and heavy passenger cars, and an increase in the fine for failure to get a residential parking ticket from $50 to $60.

“Sin taxes” on alcohol and cigarettes are going up as well.  So is city parking, DVD rentals, car leases, even Taste of Chicago tickets.  And apparently drinking water out of plastic bottles is now a sin.  Because that’s going to cost you a 5-cents-a-bottle tax.

The mayor says we need to do this to keep the city moving forward.  “Do we maintain city services and make the investments needed to keep Chicago moving forward, or do we cut services, make substantial layoffs and risk falling behind,?” asked the mayor.  “I believe we have only one choice.  We must keep Chicago moving forward.”

You move forward by spending less than you make.  Not by taxing more than you spend.

Stroger Over His Head, Drowning In Debt
Cook County Board President Stroger’s $888 million tax ploy addresses a $239 million deficit in the $3.2 billion county government and $153 million Forest Preserve operations while providing for 1,152 new jobs that represent staffing increases in virtually every county office.

Stroger wants a 100 percent gas tax increase from 6 to
12 cents a gallon.  (That’s 22 cents a gallon just for City and County taxes.)  He has endorsed an 8 percent increase in Com Ed electric bills for County residents.  He wants to increase the County sales tax from .75 percent to 2.75 percent, a 267 percent increase.  That means Chicagoans would pay 11 cents for every dollar spent in sales tax to city, county and state governments—the highest in the nation.

Stroger also advocates a doubling of the parking tax to $40 a month.  And he wants to raise the Forest Preserve District’s property tax share by 2.8 percent.

According to the Sun-Times, Stroger will collect an extra $981 million by the end of 2009 because he doesn’t want to have to ask for tax increases every year.  (That’s like holding up a liquor store, sticking a gun in the ribs of the guy behind the counter and telling him, “Give me everything in the drawer.  Because neither one of us want to have to go through this again next week.”)

So after the political lightweight lifts your wallet, he insults your intelligence by suggesting that he may repeal gas, parking and even real estate taxes in the future when prosperity returns in exchange for his $888 million extortion demands.

My advice: take a deep breath and call the 911 center again.  But first cough up that extra $2.50 a month for the phone line.

Worst Defense Is A Bad Offense
What makes Mayor Daley’s proposal even harder to swallow are his increasing displays of public whining and moral indignation.  I think His Arrogance was formally crowned when he  surreptitiously dug up Meigs Field in the middle of the night after winning more than 80 percent of the vote for re-election so his wife could plant flowers and listen to the likes of  Kenny Chesney.

At a news conference on 11 October reported by Fran Spielman in the Chicago Sun-Times, Daley said it was an “insult” for aldermen and the media to suggest that he is ambivalent about the plight of working families.  “I hope you never say I don’t understand the people of Chicago…,” said Hizzoner.  (That’s OK, mayor, half the time we can’t understand what you’re trying to say either.)  “…Never try to say that the mayor doesn’t care about struggling families.”

When 49th Ward Alderman Joe “foie gras” Moore had the audacity to suggest that alderman were just doing their jobs by actually examining the mayor’s ballooning budget rather than just reading a news release about his appearances before newspaper editorial boards, the mayor played hardball by threatening to do away with the proposed doubling of the aldermanic expense allowance.

That didn’t intimidate Ald. Moore who said “Without showing that the mayor is truly committed to rooting out waste, inefficiency and corruption, it’s very hard to justify these increases.”

Laurence Msall, president of The Civic Federation was even more suspect.  “We are very disappointed that homeowners and other taxpayers are being asked to shoulder the burden of a $108 million property-tax increase without a more comprehensive plan for why the money is needed and how it will be spent.”

Don’t They Have Libraries In Schools?
When I was a kid, they had libraries in schools.  Even at our little public school in Wisconsin they had a library.  There was only once catch.  You had to enroll in school and go to class in order to enter the library and check out a book.

That’s why I don’t understand Daley’s seemingly lame claim that we need this money to build 10 new libraries and maintain others.

“If you’ve ever gone into a library, you know how important libraries are to the future of this city,” said Daley with apparent sincerity.  “Libraries, schools and parks are the keys to preventing children from going into gangs, guns and drugs.”

“Better read than dead,” I guess the mayor is saying.  If only it were that simple.

Civic Federation President Msall  remains skeptical.  “It is unclear to us why libraries have become the city’s top priority at this time ahead of all other city priorities, such as our woefully under-funded pension system.  In our view, the case has not been made to justify such a huge tax and government spending increase.”

What do we need new libraries for anyway?  The last time I was in a library was at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  And I wouldn’t have gone there then if they had computers smaller than Buicks and something called the Internet.  I’m guessing you can plagiarize a paper just as easily using the Internet as you can in a library built by overburdened taxpayers.

It’s hard to fathom that the same kids who have to enter Chicago Public Schools through metal detectors are going to be mesmerized by new libraries and the merits of the Dewey Decimal System.

First You Have To Go To Class
While Mayor Daley admits that tying the tax increases to the building and renovation of libraries makes it easier for aldermen to support them (Chicago Tribune/Redeye 11 October 2007, Pg. 8), I’m not sure that’s where our priorities should be.

If you listen to Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, Chicago Public Schools are improving.  But they’re still not performing as well as they should be.  And the problem is exacerbated for African-American and Hispanic students, especially boys.

Kate N. Grossman and Art Golab of the Sun-Times reported on Halloween of this year that the “test score gap between white and minority students in the Chicago public high schools has gotten worse over the last five years.”

While standardized test scores aren’t up to snuff, the biggest problem is absenteeism to the point of delinquency and drop out rates.  According to a University of Chicago study, 61 percent of African-American boys who enter ninth grade in Chicago public schools do not finish.  The figures for Latino, white and Asian boys are 49, 42 and 24 percent, respectively.

Even graduating students are under performing.  Fifty-six percent of African-American boys and 48 percent of Latino boys graduated with less than a 2.0 GPA.  So even when they stay in school, they’re relegated by their performance to two-year and less attractive four-year colleges.

Only a third or so of Chicago public high school seniors enroll in four-year colleges within a year of graduation.  And only 35 percent of those who do enroll receive a bachelor’s degree within six years.  If my math is correct, that means that only about 11-1/2 percent of CPS seniors will graduate from a four-year college within six years.

The University of Chicago study found that the average CPS freshman missed about 20 or 170 instructional days of school.  That’s nearly 12 percent of the days or more than one-half day a week.

I’m not sure we need 10 new libraries or even 19 new schools by 2009.  If you build it, they may not come.

What I do know is that we have to, at the very least, get CPS students to graduate from high school and, in most cases, college.  And these days, I’d encourage kids to attend graduate school whenever possible.
Nice try mayor.  We don’t need more libraries.  We need more students.

What Is This, “Disneyland?”
Mayor Daley’s is given a pass for city hiring and police brutality scandals, etc., because people say the city is clean and relatively free of violent crime.  But shouldn’t those criteria be a given for any major American city, not to mention a World Class City?

The Civic Federation questions why the mayor needed to increase the city’s operating budget by $700 million over the last two years.  A Sun-Times editorial the day after the mayor’s budget address chastises the mayor for cutting just 35 of 35,867 jobs, less than one percent of the city payroll, and suggests “When you can’t balance your checkbook, you don’t renovate your house?”

Which begs the question, if we’re really that strapped for cash that we have to tax our way out of it, why are we continuing to pursue a 2016 Olympic bid?

For that matter, why are we once again planning to expand Navy Pier?  And do we really need more Millennium Parks and Northerly Islands?
Grant Park was a beautiful European-style park.  Millennium Park’s 4,000-seat Jay Pritzker Pavilion is a welcome addition.  But do we really need a 110-ton stainless steel elliptical “bean?”  Granted, it’s a great way to fingerprint potential terrorists, but unless you’re a welder, it seems superfluous.

For that matter, do we need those garish glass-block towers that comprise the Crown Fountain?  Personally, I don’t care to see the projection of a face that would scare me in an alley standing 50 feet tall and spewing water at me.

Furthermore, what’s the point of that ridiculous 925-foot winding bridge connecting Millennium Park to Daley Bicentennial Plaza?  I suppose it’s great if you’re not in a hurry, or drunk—or both. 
Here’s what I don’t get: On the one hand, the mayor maintains that we have to “move forward” to generate more revenue from outside sources.  But he seems bent on turning Chicago into something more akin to Disney World for tourists.

On the other hand, he’s gouging tourists and residents with excessive taxes on everything from restaurant meals, rental cars, gas, hotels and parking.

By taxing the people on everything they eat, drink, smoke, ride, purchase, plug in or otherwise consume, the mayor is financing the “forward progress” that is to be his legacy.  And he’ll extort all of us in the process.

City Council Passes $276.5 Million Plan
On 13 November, by a 29-21 vote, the City Council approved the mayor’s scaled back $83.4 million property tax increase, still the largest in our city’s history.  And by a more resounding 37-13 vote, the Council approved the $193.1 million tax and fee increases to balance the mayor’s $5.9 billion budget.  (Note: For some reason, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times report property tax increases of $86.5 million and $83.4 million, respectively.  They also record the tax and fee approval vote as 37-13 by the Trib and 40-10 by the Times.)

This Just In: “Weightlifters Win”
Mayor Richard M. as in metaphor Daley announced his property tax victory by declaring “weightlifters win.”  Daley said the aldermen who supported his budget were weightlifters for doing the “heavy lifting.”  The mayor said “…No one wanted to make the tough decisions.  But it was the easy decision to vote ‘no.’”

I disagree.  What’s tougher, telling your kid he can have a new bike and beg, borrow or steal to pay for it or say “no?”

It doesn’t take a weightlifter to lift a wallet.  It just takes two slender, slick fingers.  (If I wanted a weightlifting politician, I’d move back to Southern California.)

Daley says he understands the plight of working families.  But he also seems to be saying that these tax increases are just a drop in the bucket.
What’s another $60 in property taxes on a $225,000 home?  What’s the big deal about another $45 a year for water and sewer?  If you can’t afford another $11 on that $100 meal downtown, you should probably stay at home.  (Of course you better come up with at least another $22 in tips or the wait staff will be less than pleased because they’re paying another 22 cents for a gallon of gas to wait on you.)  And if you can rent a car for a weekend, you can afford another $5 in tax.

You mean to say you can’t afford another 7 cents for that six-pack of beer?  Or another 10 cents for that DVD rental you’re watching while enjoying a beer?  And what’s another 5 cents for a bottle of water?  You’re drinking too much bottled water anyway.  You should be drinking more whisky—for an extra 22 cents a bottle.

The problem is, those drops of water accumulate and spill over so that not even a “weightlifter” can lift the bucket to clean up the mess around it.  Which begs the question, Messrs. Daley and Stroger, when is enough, enough?

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Gino Giovannetti is a member of “The Jonathon Brandmeier Show” on “The Loop,” WLUP Radio 97.9-FM Chicago. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism in Madison and also attended the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University in Bloomington. The views and opinions of Gino do NOT represent those of WLUP Radio, Emmis Communications, Inc., or anyone with a brain the size of a walnut.

©2007 All Rights Reserved.

Gino@WLUP.com