October dawns as clutch month for CTA's funding future
I just barely mentioned the transit funding mess last week in a potpourri post on Tuesday. This week may prove to be different, as the calendar page turnes to October. The Illinois House meets on Monday and the Senate on Tuesday for the veto session.
In the House, Majority Leader Michael Madigan promised hearings on the Senate-passed capital funding bill that expands gambling across the state and calls for a land-casino in Chicago, and yet barely covers the CTA's needs.
Senate Leader Emil Jones said his chamber would take another look at the Senate Bill 572, which would impose a quarter-of-one-percent hike in the sales tax and higher Chicago real estate transfer taxes.
And it should. As a Tribune editorial writer put it: "The transit bill now on the table would raise $435 million in new funding each year, mostly through increased sales taxes. But it also would save millions through reforms. [Emphasis mine.] The CTA's unions would make higher pension contributions and accept lower benefits. The offer is contingent on increased funding for transit before Jan. 1. The CTA says failure to take the unions up on their offer is costing $11.9 million a month."
christ on a cracker... sales taxes are regressive income taxes, and the first line of defense for gutless politicians. What about that property and income tax flip? What about making Daley open up his TIF books to the state leg? We're already tacking on nearly nine cents to every dollar spent, its insane.
Posted by: quack | October 01, 2007 at 12:45 PM
whoowee, if you all think that a small sales
tax increase for mass transit is regressive
then you obviously haven't read in today's
Tribune and Sun-Times what the mayor, the
board of education, and the county board has
in-store for us tax-wise. read it and weep.
Posted by: Mario Mims | October 01, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Um, all sales taxes are regressive.
The cumulative state, county, and city sales taxes in Chicago are already among the highest in the nation and so ludicrously sprawling that even the authors of Wikipedia's article on American sales taxes bail out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States#Illinois
There's plenty of tax money to be found; a much better plan than a sales tax increase, for example, would be to cancel TIFs after, say, seven years, rather than the current 22, and take that money, hundreds of millions, that's freed up to fund the CTA, schools, parks, and infrastructure repairs. The Skyway has already, unfortunately, been privatized; where's the money from that gone? Is the Children's Museum just taking space on Millennium Park, or is that lease money going to vanish somewhere?
For all the people who claim not to want a Band-Aid and say the state's funding formula needs to be fixed, many of them sure are happy with a sales tax increase, even though it's the biggest Band-Aid of all, and it hurts the neediest the hardest. (I wonder how many of them have the most heartless attitude: "Well, poor people spend so little, it won't affect them anyway.")
Posted by: Bob S. | October 02, 2007 at 01:27 PM
I agree with Bob S.
Cancel the TIF's then the Chicago Board of
Education can keep the money and not have to
seek property tax increases or help from
Springfield.
Posted by: Mario Mims | October 02, 2007 at 04:04 PM