Chicago Tribune Editorial: Reckoning with Stroger/Cook commissioners fail again to cut sales tax/Chicago Tribune Editorial: Bring on the election

Chicago Tribune Editorial: Reckoning with Stroger
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
September 1, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0901edit1sep01,0,3628899.story


Monday's selection of a new Cook County Board member should assure that President Todd Stroger loses half of his beloved sales tax hike. The board keeps passing reductions in the tax, and Stroger keeps vetoing them. Tuesday, though, ought to be the day when enough board members finally vote to override a Stroger veto.

That's not a prediction: We'll believe the outcome when we see it. Stroger still could sway some board members to renege on their commitments and vote against the interests of their constituents. Although, as the little calendar beneath this editorial attests, only 22 weeks remain until the Feb. 2 Illinois primary. Any board member who flops into Stroger's camp now -- or who invents some reason not to show up Tuesday -- is begging to be defeated.

That risk is particularly menacing for Edwin Reyes, whom Democratic ward bosses chose Monday to replace Roberto Maldonado on the County Board. Maldonado, who left county government to become alderman of the 26th Ward, was one of 14 County Board co-sponsors of the half-point reduction in Stroger's tax hike. To his great credit, Maldonado also worked hard to assure that his County Board replacement(a) would be selected before Tuesday's override vote and (b) would vote to override Stroger. That's crucial, because if 14 of the 17 members don't vote against Stroger, his tax hike stays whole.

Reyes said Monday that he'll vote for the override. That would put him in the company of board members who want to improve Cook County's business competitiveness -- and slow the death of jobs and employers hobbled by high taxes.

We applaud the 13 remaining co-sponsors and trust that they'll vote accordingly. They are Forrest Claypool, Earlean Collins, John Daley, Bridget Gainer, Elizabeth Doody Gorman, Gregg Goslin, Joan Patricia Murphy, Tony Peraica, Tim Schneider, Pete Silvestri, Deborah Sims, Robert Steele and Larry Suffredin.

(Note to potential County Board candidates: Three board members -- William Beavers, Jerry "Iceman" Butler and Joseph Mario Moreno -- repeatedly have fought to preserve all of Stroger's tax increase. They'll likely do so again Tuesday.)

So we'll all see whether the County Board finally relieves some of the pressure Stroger's regressive tax increase imposed on poor households. The rest of the increase probably won't be killed until voters dump Stroger for a board president who wants to modernize and streamline this too-costly government.

-- -- --

Tuesday also is the day the five women board members, joined by an unknown number of male co-sponsors, introduce a measure to outlaw video gambling in unincorporated Cook. Companies that stand to make bazillions from the legalization of video gambling have been hiring the usual insider suspects as their lobbyists. If, as expected, the measure is referred to committee, public hearings likely will follow.

Good. We're eager to see who approaches the microphone to speak for or against video gambling in Cook County. Just as we're eager for the County Board to eventually follow Gainer, the lead sponsor, in voting to opt out of this scourge.

First things first, though: Tuesday needs to bring a slashing of the Todd Stroger sales tax hike that never should have been.




Cook commissioners fail again to cut sales tax
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Posted by Hal Dardick at 1:02 p.m.; last updated at 1:13 p.m.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/09/cook-commissioners-fail-again-to-cut-sales-tax.html?track=email-alert-breakingnews


Cook County commissioners today couldn't make their roll back of the county's controversial sales tax stick, failing by one vote to override Board President Todd Stroger's veto of their attempted tax cut.

That means the county sales tax rate remains at 1.75 percent, despite a majority of the county board wanting to reduce it to 1.25 percent.

Tax-cut backers needed 14 of 17 commissioners to override Stroger's veto. The vote was 13-4.

Commissioner Deborah Sims (D-Chicago), who had been part of the tenuous coalition supporting a roll back, today chose to support Stroger and sustain the veto. In July, Sims voted to roll back the sales tax increase, but today she switched positions and voted in favor of keeping the tax hike. (You can read about the board's July vote to cut the sales tax by clicking here.)

Sims said it’s too early in the 2010 budget process to determine whether the entire sales tax increase will be needed next year. “I hope that we will not rush to do anything here today,” she said.

“I want to make an intelligent vote here,” she added. “That’s what the people elected us to do, and we can’t do that if we don’t have all the information.”

Sims added, "This is a decision I made that I feel is in best for the people I represent."

Since the county sales-tax hike of a penny-on-the-dollar was approved in late February 2008, Stroger has remained the target of intense criticism but held fast that it’s needed to prevent decimation of the county’s vast public health system.

“It will make very little difference to most consumers,” Stroger said today, accusing roll back supporters of being dishonest with constituents. “It will devastate our public-health system.”

But Stroger's argument was somewhat undercut earlier today when officials with the county's independent Health and Hospitals System announced their preliminary 2010 budget asks for $74 million less in tax funding.

During the debate, Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) said lowering the tax will discourage shoppers in far-flung Cook suburbs from going to collar counties to do their shopping. He cited a Chicago-region sales-tax study released Monday.

Suffredin's argument was countered by Commissioner William Beavers (D-Chicago), who said a survey of his constituents indicated they support the sales-tax hike by an overwhelming margin.

“It’s not for food, it’s not for medicine,” he said of the sales tax. “People are willing to pay that one penny.”



Chicago Tribune Editorial: Bring on the election
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
September 2, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0902edit1sep02,0,4415333.story

"We are as good or as bad as the people who elect us."

-- Earlean Collins, Cook County

commissioner, Sept. 1, 2009



The lesson from Tuesday's vote of the Cook County Board couldn't be clearer if Moses hand-delivered it on chiseled tablets: The costly Democratic patronage machine known as Cook County government won't slim down to a size you can afford while Todd Stroger is board president. The targets of Stroger's unneeded sales-tax hike -- consumers taking their buying elsewhere, employers moving to the collar counties, poor families throttled by this regressive tax -- won't get any relief until Stroger is gone.

Voters, you have to make that happen. The County Board as currently composed cannot override Stroger's repeated vetoes of measures that would roll back even a part of his tax increase. Owing to an onerous requirement that four-fifths of the board -- that's 14 of the 17 members -- needs to agree on an override, Stroger needs only four commissioners on his side to see his vetoes sustained. Tuesday's vote to override: 13-4.

If you know anybody who wants a part-time job that pays $85,000 a year plus a staff, perks and expenses, suggest that he or she run to unseat one of the four Democrats who sustained Stroger's veto: William Beavers, Jerry "Iceman" Butler, Joseph Mario Moreno and Deborah Sims.

Sims deserved Tuesday's award for Most Bizarre Commissioner, a floating distinction for which there often are many qualified candidates. In July, Sims co-sponsored, and voted for, a measure to cut in half the full-percentage-point tax increase that took effect 14 months ago. Sims evidently had enough information to justify casting that July vote. Inexplicably, though, she didn't have enough information Tuesday to override Stroger's veto of the very measure she co-sponsored in July.

Her money quote from Tuesday's debate was an acknowledgment that furious Cook voters may take revenge against tax-happy county politicians in the Feb. 2 primary: "I don't know why, when it comes to [Cook] county government, we always take the heat for what we've done!"

Gee, Ms. Sims, that's a mystery, isn't it?

Stroger and his four accomplices had to feel humiliated by an announcement before Tuesday's vote: The county's independent Health and Hospitals System divulged that in 2010 it likely will ask for $74 million less in tax money than it's receiving this year.

That demolishes the whining from Stroger and his cronies that Cook County needs the roughly $400 million a year it gets from the sales-tax hike in part to . . . keep the health system afloat. Stroger's warning about threats to health care sounds scary. It just isn't true.

So, voters, pay heed to Earlean Collins' words: The politicians are as good or as bad as the people who elect them. You can continue to pour money by the hundreds of millions into the Stroger jobs machine. Or you can show Stroger what it's like to be unemployed and still paying the high Cook County taxes he adores.

Several people want to replace Stroger. So let's start hearing: Will you make a firm commitment to repeal the sales-tax increase on Day One?

Once again, the primary is Feb. 2.