Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Here a Tax, There a Tax

  • When Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked aldermen to share their cost-cutting and revenue-raising ideas with his budget director, some City Council members smelled a rat.

    They figured the mayor was trying to spread the blame around for the avalanche of tax increases that will be needed to solve the combined $30 billion pension crisis at the city and the public schools that has dropped Chicago’s bond rating to junk status.

    But fear of wearing the political jacket did not stop aldermen from doing their homework and giving Budget Director Alex Holt some very real ideas to generate the $754 million in new revenue the city needs, even under the best-case scenario.
And what a selection of tax increases they're looking at:
  • the always popular property tax increase
  • a fee for garbage pickup for all residents
  • Uber surcharges
  • "congestion" fees for downtown drivers
  • bicycle licenses
  • jack up gas, sales and income taxes
Not a single spending decrease, only increases. And various other fees on goods that will accomplish one thing - drive businesses, jobs and people out of Chicago.

Labels:

64 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My taxes already go towards my garbage pickup, asswipe alderfuck. Here's a good idea, start taxing the hood rats and thugs for the police service that they get. They get a disproportionate amount of service. Tax those uber people. All for taxing the douchebag bicyclists. Here's an idea...stop with the damn bike lanes, or tax the cyclists.

8/19/2015 12:17:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" • a fee for garbage pickup for all residents "

We already pay for garbage removal, this isn't something we get for free.

I smell a Rham too

8/19/2015 12:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm gone already

8/19/2015 12:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"...bicycle licenses..."

What big city is this going to be enforceable in, given the current stay-in-the-car climate, with officers so terrorized by the bullhorns and the revs and the Marilyn Mosbys that they will let themselves get beaten bloody unconscious with their own service weapon?

Mayberry?

Gonna step on it in reverse down a double-parked, tight residential block with the guy whipping (carefully) down the sidewalk, then ducking into the alley where the Speed Bumps live? Ha.

The nuts don't even want police doing stops on cars 6-deep with bangers anymore. "Improve public safety, curtail traffic stops."

Here I go again, outa North Riverside, up and over the IHB overpass on Cermak and down into Westchester. Beautiful summer day. Woo-hoo!

Eat me, Rahm. Time to take up ballet again...

I mean...

"1001 reasons not to live, work, or spend money in Chicago."

How many Canadian-made Divvybikes have we lost to the no-go zones so far?

GAA ha ha ha.

Make your northside fixie hipsters wear bar codes on the backs of their heads or something. Low-hanging fruit.

ES&D.

8/19/2015 12:41:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I already pay a congestion fee for driving downtown to conduct business; I pay over fifty dollars to park my car for three hours.

As for their other fees, I just keep transferring my needs, wants, purchases, services, out of the city. I divert a few blocks and buy my gas north of the city. I'm researching veterinarians outside Chicago, anticipating Mayor Crazy is going to start taxing services soon.

Oh, and I buy my groceries at a store that can still give me plastic bags, with nice convenient handles. That means I now grocery-shop outside the city. And, since Home Depot had to give me an awkward, useless paper bag yesterday, I'll be taking my thousands of dollars a year in Home Depot purchases outside the city, too.

8/19/2015 12:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"When Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked aldermen to share their cost-cutting and revenue-raising ideas with his budget director..."

..not one said "Eliminate 25 aldermanic positions, and redistrict the city along the neat, sensible, geometric lines of the new trash-pickup grid system."

Unneeded old carpeting, rotted lumber and smashed toilets, unneeded aldermen...analogous?

Not going there, no, no...

8/19/2015 12:48:00 AM  
Anonymous IN THE KNOW said...

"Not a single spending decrease, only increases. And various other fees on goods that will accomplish one thing - drive businesses, jobs and people out of Chicago."

Funny SCC - you get it, but the whole city council and the Mayor doesn't get it.

Maybe you should run for alderman. Or Mayor?



8/19/2015 12:54:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tried and true way to manage government debt is to raise taxes. after all, it is the government's money to start with. Citizens are always good for more taxes.

8/19/2015 12:54:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Where is the special Fortune 500 corporate tax?

Tax the heellll out of those corporations. Do you think they'd run away? Go to a low tax state where the city is not completely corrupt? What does Dallas or Houston have that Chicago doesn't? Besides good schools, low taxes, better weather, and friendly government?

8/19/2015 01:45:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was offered a job in the State of Illinois and Chicago. The alternative was the state of unemployment. Unemployment was temporary, Chitcago would have been permanent. I picked the right choice.

8/19/2015 02:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget how these scumbag politicians have no problem paying for"sex change" operations now even though the city is broke. Politicians will give away everything just to get a few extra votes. Tax and spend. Lie and lie.

8/19/2015 02:51:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democrats have never met a tax they didn't like or they didn't hike

8/19/2015 03:27:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What are you willing to give up in salary or benefits?

8/19/2015 03:30:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democrats, sorry for misspelling I meant Demorats do not decrease spending, they have always increased spending and taxes.
Why Chicago citizens keeping voting for them is amazing.

8/19/2015 04:42:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm glad I mostly do my shopping in the suburbs and Indiana! Buzz off Chicago and your liberal taxes! Heres an ideq cut down the Alderman to only 10! The other 40 alderman are useless yes people!

8/19/2015 04:56:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's start with axing the City Counsel down to 15 Alderthieves. They will be more accountable and we will save millions.

8/19/2015 05:28:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I propose low flat tires to be taxed, rims that are more then 17 inches tax, groups of more then 3 youths tax, if you are less then 120 lbs tax, etc....etc....etc....etc...if your a regular at Bourbon street TAX TAX TAX!!!

8/19/2015 05:29:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Until recently I completely forgot about the water bottle tax. I normally never buy just water when at the store until the other day when we ran out. Friggin 2.99 jewel brand case of water came out to 4 something with that tax.! I might be late on this but any more shopping for me will be done in the burbs! Not giving this city another dime they don't make me pay! Throw a tax on flammin hot cheeto's and blunts ya little prick! Make these animals pay some kinda tax for once! Then again, all the arab liquor stores they shop at will just not charge it anyway like they do now with the cigarettes and everything else,

8/19/2015 06:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nobody forced to live in the City should favor any further taxation. However, the issuance of a bicycle tax is way overdue! Consider that several million dollars have been paid by taxpayers to create special status lanes for bicyclists. In return the ingrates cause traffic congestion and ride with a total disregard for motorists or Rules of the Road.The Free Ride is over! With the exception of the sales tax that they pay when they purchase their bikes, these good Democrats contribute nothing for the millions spent on them. Make them Pay like every other resident for the privilege of riding in our pot hole littered streets."G"

8/19/2015 06:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tax increases, and borrow a few more billion in expensive bonds, to "balance" the budget and move on. Wonderfull. Get ready to start selling the family silver (whats left of it).

8/19/2015 06:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Elections have consequences.
Keep voting Democratic!

8/19/2015 06:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Take the checkbook away from Rahm

8/19/2015 07:01:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Recently read an article about the city's debt problems and that the cost of covering city employee health care is astronomical. About a week later the city announced that they will now cover "gender reassignment operations" The fools that run this place are the worst people in the business. It's the Chicago politicians that are destroying Chicago not the people. Spending $$$ they don't have for votes. Sick!

8/19/2015 07:14:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about cuts in the number of Aldermen, Streets an San, city electricians,(never see them) and most of the other political hack positions.

8/19/2015 07:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lets get rid of half of the aldermen and save millions.

8/19/2015 07:29:00 AM  
Blogger dc.sunsets said...

Chicago was trapped in an irresistible gravity well, pulling it toward full Detroit meltdown, before the last Daley clown left office.

Does inevitability have a smell? A stench?

I wonder if the similarly inevitable financial/economic cataclysm baked into the larger (nation & world) cake will lead to lop-off-their-heads political recrimination (a la the French Revolution and subsequent Terror) and reach back into the past to retrieve those who spent the last 20 years robbing the city, state and nation blind...and thought they were safely retired from politics?

8/19/2015 07:46:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Plastic Bags, Minimum Wages ETC. ETC.

Every copper and fireman I know up here in Norwood/Edison Park REFUSES to buy anything or get any services in the City of Chicago.
A short drive to the suburbs is the order of the day for them and their families.

I bring my lunch to work and the only one thing a day I buy is my DD Coffee while at work.

How many hundreds of thousands on the boarders are following suit?
This surely has an impact on the city and these MORON politians do not see it.

8/19/2015 07:58:00 AM  
Blogger Mr. SouthSide said...

Anyone surprised?

8/19/2015 08:06:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about the "ghetto blight tax"? To recover some of the trillions spent on police services, unpaid hospital bills, CPS, food stamps, and all the other ill-conceived social programs that obviously have ZERO effect on improving the west/south sides? Maybe a .10 tax on 40 ounce beer, .25 on Garner cigarettes, .15 on quarter bags of chips and pop that merely is named by the color, etc!!! I though "everyone has to kick in"??? Except those who cause the financial crisis I suppose..

8/19/2015 08:17:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bike license .....Really not enforcing that


TAX This
How About RhamBO pays for his own security detail?????

He has millions and then can free up CPD to fight crime

8/19/2015 09:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about a campaign Tax? Tax all money donidate to all politicians. At a least 50 Percent.

8/19/2015 09:30:00 AM  
Blogger Cuthbert J Twillie said...

Here's some Tax ideas for Tiny Dancer to consider: ..........

>>> 1) A Gang Tax.
-------- Per StreetGangs.com there's 100 Gangs in Chicago. Tax each gang $10,000 per year. This would generate $1,000,000 Million Dollars in revenue. Penalty for not paying the 'Gang Tax' is Five Years in prison without parole for the gang's leader.

>>> 2) An Individual Gangbanger Tax.
-------- Per The Chicago Crime Commission and a 2012 Chicago Police Department gang audit and as published here -- By the numbers: Chicago-area gangs -- there's a minimum combined membership of 70,000 people (and Folk). Tax each individual Gangbanger $2,000 dollars per year. This would generate $140,000,000 Million Dollars in revenue. Penalty for not paying the 'Individual Gangbanger Tax' is Ten Years in prison without parole for the gangbanger.
NOTE: The linked article above states that there's 600 Gang 'Factions' in Chicago, vs the 100 gangs as noted in the top linked article. The 600 number would generate $6,000,000 Million Dollars in revenue vs $1,000,000 million dollars.

>>> 3) High Rise Building Resident 'View' Tax.
-------- Tax each resident who lives on the 11th Floor and above $1,000 Dollars per year for 'the privilege' of having that 'breath taking view' out their windows. This tax would generate untold millions in revenue. This tax could even be a 'progressive tax, getting more expensive the higher one lives. And it's not like the people living in these buildings can't afford it.

===================
Naturally I'm being facetious with all these silly taxes. But they're not as silly as some of the hair-brained tax ideas the city council's **Progressive Caucus** will come up with.

8/19/2015 10:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Simply said....... Time to mov out of Chicago ...........

8/19/2015 12:01:00 PM  
Blogger Michael Spaargaren said...

What I want to know is when Rahm says "share the sacrifice" why is the Aldermen's' pension never brought into question?

8/19/2015 01:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dont enforce Dog laws,Unless it a,Gang Bangers dog,I wont enforce bicycle laws,I let normal people drink at the lakefront.

8/19/2015 01:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Go after the gangs DOPE MONEY.

All that money that goes from all kinds of crime and flows via the street corner drug sales in this city and goes up the gang food chain until it winds up as piles and even roomfuls of cash in Mexico. We need to intercept and claim that money to keep out taxes down and our pensions up.

Problem is that some of that money goes to politicians who protect the gangs.

8/19/2015 02:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
" • a fee for garbage pickup for all residents "

We already pay for garbage removal, this isn't something we get for free.

I smell a Rham too

8/19/2015 12:20:00 AM
I guess that you could make the same argument if you lived in the suburbs, but out here everyone pays for garbage pick-up. It has totally privatized.

8/19/2015 03:56:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tax the heellll out of those corporations. Do you think they'd run away? Go to a low tax state where the city is not completely corrupt? What does Dallas or Houston have that Chicago doesn't? Besides good schools, low taxes, better weather, and friendly government?

8/19/2015 01:45:00 AM
No large city in America has good public schools.

8/19/2015 03:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

of course, no cuts--they're democrats and need to bribe people to vote for them,,,,,,

8/19/2015 05:53:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Congestion fee?"

There ya go. Tax the snot (no pun intended) out of Loratadine (TM) "non-drowsy allergy relief medication."

The goldenrod is coming into full bloom now. Ragweed can't be far behind.

>gah< >snif<

http://pollen.aaaai.org/nab/index.cfm?p=allergenreport&stationid=147

Dr. Joseph G. Leija, MD FAAAAI, is a hell of a guy. About 84, and still goes and checks the pollen filters on top of Gottlieb Memorial every day, takes them down to the lab, counts patiently under the microscope.

Unsung hero, here thanked and acknowledged for his years of silent service to the city and environs.

8/19/2015 05:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He had no problem firing teachers and cutting transportation for kids that need schoolbus.

8/19/2015 06:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" keep transferring my needs, wants, purchases, services, out of the city..."

"Oh, and I buy my groceries at a store that can still give me plastic bags..."

DITTO for that.

8/19/2015 07:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's not forget the "cloud tax" (of internet services that use cloud computing i.e. Netflix)

8/19/2015 07:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The plan to keep on spending beyond their means so of course they plan to keep on taxing..... in fact taxing us to death.
Won't be long before they're taxing the air that we breathe.

8/19/2015 08:05:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bike license .....Really not enforcing that


TAX This
How About RhamBO pays for his own security detail?????

He has millions and then can free up CPD to fight crime

Cause RAHAM GETS it Free!

8/19/2015 08:46:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Uber surcharges..."

Not over Ari Emanuel's dead body. His company has plunged heavily in Uber, and he stands to make about a billion dollars off this.

8/19/2015 10:44:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cane tax.

Walker surcharge.

Wheelchair registration and licensing.

Ezekiel says you shouldn't be alive after 60 anyway, so...clean 'em out.

8/19/2015 10:47:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Progressive a hole tax, the bigger the hole more tax, millions alone at city hall

8/19/2015 11:24:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OT: One more reason not to vote for her...

Durbin backs Duckworth for Democratic Senate nomination

(Durbin helped recruit Duckworth as a congressional candidate in her unsuccessful 2006 bid against Republican Rep. Peter Roskam. In 2012, Duckworth won a bid for Congress against Republican Rep. Joe Walsh in a redrawn west and northwest suburban district designed to favor Democrats. She was re-elected last fall.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-durbin-backs-duckworth-for-democratic-senate-nomination-20150604-story.html

8/19/2015 11:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Plastic Bags, Minimum Wages ETC. ETC. 

Every copper and fireman I know up here in Norwood/Edison Park REFUSES to buy anything or get any services in the City of Chicago. 
A short drive to the suburbs is the order of the day for them and their families. 

I bring my lunch to work and the only one thing a day I buy is my DD Coffee while at work.

How many hundreds of thousands on the boarders are following suit?
This surely has an impact on the city and these MORON politians do not see it.

Well buddy you do get a city service it's called a paycheck every two weeks. You should get on your knees and thank God you took that Police test years ago cause I can guarantee you would not be making the kind of money with the job security you have if you'd done something else your high school education. I get sick of these guys that act like the City owes us so much. Yes, somethings suck about work but no job is perfect. Before I was a policeman I had a regular job and being a policeman isn't a bad way to make a living. I live on the far NW side and myself most of my neighbors take pride in shopping in the neighborhood we live in.

8/19/2015 11:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Plastic Bags, Minimum Wages ETC. ETC.

Every copper and fireman I know up here in Norwood/Edison Park REFUSES to buy anything or get any services in the City of Chicago.
A short drive to the suburbs is the order of the day for them and their families.

I bring my lunch to work and the only one thing a day I buy is my DD Coffee while at work.

How many hundreds of thousands on the boarders are following suit?
This surely has an impact on the city and these MORON politians do not see it.

Well buddy you do get a city service it's called a paycheck every two weeks. You should get on your knees and thank God you took that Police test years ago cause I can guarantee you would not be making the kind of money with the job security you have if you'd done something else your high school education. I get sick of these guys that act like the City owes us so much. Yes, somethings suck about work but no job is perfect. Before I was a policeman I had a regular job and being a policeman isn't a bad way to make a living. I live on the far NW side and myself most of my neighbors take pride in shopping in the neighborhood we live in.


Well, rahm and the rest of the alderthieves thank you for paying the extra city tax on water bottles, gasoline, and sales tax. I'll go to Niles to do my grocery shopping, get my plastic bags, buy my bottled water, and get gas too.

8/20/2015 12:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like the bicycle license and then require the assholes to have insurance for the accidents they cause.

8/20/2015 12:58:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Cane tax.

Walker surcharge.

Wheelchair registration and licensing.

Ezekiel says you shouldn't be alive after 60 anyway, so...clean 'em out.

8/19/2015 10:47:00 PM

Ezekiel says you have no contributory value to society after you're SEVENTY. Not 60. He's such a charmer, isn't he? Hey, how old is he, anyway?

8/20/2015 01:32:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Anonymous said...
" • a fee for garbage pickup for all residents "

We already pay for garbage removal, this isn't something we get for free.

I smell a Rham too

8/19/2015 12:20:00 AM
I guess that you could make the same argument if you lived in the suburbs, but out here everyone pays for garbage pick-up. It has totally privatized.

8/19/2015 03:56:00 PM

That doesn't make it right; it just means you got used to being charged twice for garbage pick-up.

8/20/2015 01:35:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

^ Isn't Happy Foods a great little place?

8/20/2015 01:38:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

8/19/2015 01:45:00 AM
No large city in America has good public schools.

8/19/2015 03:58:00 PM
*******************
Many of the best high schools in the US are in Texas. Big cities in Texas.

8/20/2015 02:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Plastic Bags, Minimum Wages ETC. ETC.

Every copper and fireman I know up here in Norwood/Edison Park REFUSES to buy anything or get any services in the City of Chicago.
A short drive to the suburbs is the order of the day for them and their families.

I bring my lunch to work and the only one thing a day I buy is my DD Coffee while at work.

How many hundreds of thousands on the boarders are following suit?
This surely has an impact on the city and these MORON politians do not see it.

Well buddy you do get a city service it's called a paycheck every two weeks. You should get on your knees and thank God you took that Police test years ago cause I can guarantee you would not be making the kind of money with the job security you have if you'd done something else your high school education. I get sick of these guys that act like the City owes us so much. Yes, somethings suck about work but no job is perfect. Before I was a policeman I had a regular job and being a policeman isn't a bad way to make a living. I live on the far NW side and myself most of my neighbors take pride in shopping in the neighborhood we live in.

8/19/2015 11:49:00 PM

Sounds like a north side yuppie copper. I don't know anyone who takes pride in getting screwed by this city. We work for that paycheck.

8/20/2015 09:14:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I shop in my neighborhood,Amazon.

8/20/2015 09:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dean's Bro in law Po Ret Schauf making $20K as FLOP Legislative Team

Gee did We Vote for Him to Do that? Again working COPs Dues used to help Others


Funny $20K is about what youd save over 2o yrs of No FLOP Dues

$20K would mean you wouldn't have to do that side job to pay for your kids HS

Schuaf fails to win election at SGT AT Arms but still makes Money!!

Dean Schauf FLOP a TAX we cant Afford anymore

8/20/2015 10:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


TAX This
How About RhamBO pays for his own security detail?????

He has millions and then can free up CPD to fight crime

Cause RAHAM GETS it Free!

Cause DEaN thinks its a good thing

8/20/2015 10:34:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>>Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Congestion fee?"

There ya go. Tax the snot (no pun intended) out of Loratadine (TM) "non-drowsy allergy relief medication."

The goldenrod is coming into full bloom now. Ragweed can't be far behind.

>gah< >snif<

http://pollen.aaaai.org/nab/index.cfm?p=allergenreport&stationid=147 <<<

Better yet, lets tax Goldenrod and Ragweed!

8/20/2015 11:29:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well buddy you do get a city service it's called a paycheck every two weeks. You should get on your knees and thank God you took that Police test years ago cause I can guarantee you would not be making the kind of money with the job security you have if you'd done something else your high school education. I get sick of these guys that act like the City owes us so much. Yes, somethings suck about work but no job is perfect. Before I was a policeman I had a regular job and being a policeman isn't a bad way to make a living. I live on the far NW side and myself most of my neighbors take pride in shopping in the neighborhood we live in.

8/19/2015 11:49:00 PM

Sounds like a north side yuppie copper. I don't know anyone who takes pride in getting screwed by this city. We work for that paycheck.

8/20/2015 09:14:00 AM

Wrong; sounds like not a cop at all. TRYing to sound like one of us, but not one of us.

8/20/2015 12:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about legalizing video poker machines in the city.

8/20/2015 07:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yep, just left the city after 58 years, will leave the state in 7 years after that. Corruption, theft, lies, from top to bottom, primarily the Democrats, but the Republicans can't shift their portion of the blame either. Pathetic. I'm just sorry I waited so long......

8/23/2015 12:34:00 AM  

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