More Tax Hikes

Toni is about to get all her tax hikes, including the ammo "violence tax." We haven't heard of an exception for law enforcement, so we'll be traveling outside the county again if necessary:

• The Cook County Board Finance Committee had just put the finishing touches Friday on its 2016 budget, approving a 1 percent hotel tax to go with its earlier penny on the dollar increase in the sales tax, when President Toni Preckwinkle offered a sobering assessment.
  
  Asked directly by me how long the additional revenue will hold the county, Preckwinkle pointedly avoided giving any reassurances about future revenue requests during the remainder of her term.
  
  Preckwinkle wouldn’t even say she won’t be back asking for more money in the 2017 budget.

Of course she will be - responsible spending is for other people, not democrats, and certainly not in northeastern Illinois.

Tucked away at the end of the Mark Brown column, long after everyone else stops reading, is this little tidbit:

• In the interest of full disclosure, my wife recently took a job with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart in a policy role. But I plan to keep writing about county government when appropriate.

Boy, that Tom Dart loves hiring media family members. It must be the hair or something.