June 24--Cook County Board President Toni Stroger ...
Whoops, we meant Todd Preckwinkle ...
Wait, let's try this again: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is weighing the idea of imposing a penny-on-the-dollar increase in the local sales tax to balance the county's books.
Sound familiar? It should. It's the same reviled tax increase that her predecessor, Todd Stroger, imposed on consumers.
The tax increase that Preckwinkle vowed to repeal. The tax increase she said was terribly regressive.
The tax increase that helped usher Stroger out of office in the 2010 Democratic primary.
How much did voters despise that tax? There were four candidates in that race. Stroger finished fourth.
Now, wait. Is it opposite day? Did we miss April Fool's? Preckwinkle wants to bring back the Stroger Tax?
Except this time it would be the Toni Tax.
Preckwinkle is lobbying Cook County Board members to raise the county's portion of the sales tax by 1 percentage point, which would push Chicago's tax rate to 10.25 percent, among the highest in the nation.
This is after Preckwinkle promised, and accomplished, a rollback of the Stroger tax to 9.25 percent.
People remember her 2010 campaign ad, where she stood next to a costumed Ben Franklin and said: "I'll repeal the whole Stroger sales tax. You've earned your pennies. I'll save them for you."
She did it. The final piece of that increase came off on Jan. 1, 2013, saving consumers a lot of money.
Preckwinkle makes the case that she has responsibly handled county finances. She has brought more efficiency and accountability and reduced the workforce -- and yet the county still faces a structural deficit.
"We have been both responsible and diligent and focused on getting the best bang for our buck," she told us. "But we still find ourselves in a pretty impossible situation. We had two choices: one, property taxes, and the other, the sales tax. We talked to our commissioners about where we were. There was no interest in a property tax increase. I need nine votes.
"I'm well aware an increase in the sales tax puts me in an awkward position, but my job is to make the tough decisions. So that's what we're going to do. Find nine votes to raise the sales tax."
The county, like the city and Chicago Public Schools, faces crushing pension obligations. Preckwinkle tried, with our support, to pass a pension reform bill in Springfield, but it has gone nowhere and would likely be challenged in court.
Taxpayers, particularly taxpayers in Chicago, should be shuddering at this point. The vast financial troubles of City Hall, the Chicago school system, Cook County and the state of Illinois have a lot of politicians sizing up how big a bite voters will tolerate. It's a race to the bottom ... of your wallet.
We've credited Preckwinkle for improved professionalism and accountability in county government.
But we also remember the convincing arguments she made (we made them, too) for rolling back that sales tax hike. Sales taxes hit the poorest consumers the hardest. When Cook County pushes to the highest sales tax in the nation, when it has a higher sales tax than neighboring counties, it encourages people to live, work and spend in those neighboring counties.
Preckwinkle says she has two choices, but in fact she has a third: more reductions in spending.
That starts with the county's yawning pension obligations. They can't be met just by chasing more tax dollars. There need to be benefit changes and higher employee contributions as envisioned in her pension bill.
Back in 2003, Mike Quigley, then a county commissioner (and now a congressman), released a report with lots of ideas to save money in local government. Consolidate tax duties split between the assessor, clerk and treasurer. Consolidate county and city election bureaucracies. Dissolve townships and mosquito abatement districts. Turn county roads over to local municipalities. Let the sheriff's department take over forest preserve patrols.
There was much more in his report, which promptly began to collect dust. Few of the sensible reforms have been taken up.
The problems the county faces "are hard truths, but that's what it is," Preckwinkle said. "There's no point in pretending they'll be solved by magic."
No one expects magic. They do expect more work to make every tax dollar count.
