Chicago City Council’s Progressive Caucus Tax proposals would set us back over 100 years, financial expert says – Chicago City Wire

  “All seats at the table might be equal if they had their way, but the table would be empty, and so would most of the seats.”  
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world with end
4 years ago

Based on its tax proposal, a more fitting name for this group would be the Regressive Caucus.

mike Williams
4 years ago

If the conversation is always focused on finding more revenue (taxes/fees) for the public sector, nothing in Illinois will improve.

Joe Blow
4 years ago

you can change that LaSalle st. tax to a big fat ZERO dollars of revenue if it passes, they will easily move all their computers and stuff to Indiana or some other city nearby

Andrew Szakmary
4 years ago

Agree with you on the transaction taxes, which would simply drive trading to other venues. But, why is a 3.5% city income tax on incomes over $100,000 such a bad idea, especially if it would really raise $1.4 billion annually or at least something close to that? New York City has had a higher and broader income tax on residents and people who merely work in the city for a long time, and its population has been growing for several decades. Incidentally, the pensions are much better funded there, and New York has the exact same pension clause in its… Read more »

debtsor
4 years ago

If you can’t see why a 3.5% tax on $100k households that live or work in Chicago is a really, really bad idea, then you don’t have any business proposing them at all. It’s totally family unfriendly, and the tax, coupled with increased real estate taxes (and the new state progressive tax, and the gas tax…and so on), it would most certainly drive wealthier families back to the north shore or western suburbs, where they have all lived for generations before the fairly recent north side gentrification. Companies with families will think twice about relocating into the city proper when… Read more »

Platinum Goose
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

3.5% sounds like such a small amount and I bet there’s a lot of people in Chicago that don’t realize it’s $3,500 a year, roughly $300 a month. Ask your average family in Chicago where both parents work and bring in $100K – $120K how they feel about it. I’m guessing they won’t think it’s such a trivial amount like Andrew does.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Platinum Goose

$300 a month is a car payment. So I can upgrade my old beater to something newer and more fuel efficent, or just pay it to Chicago because I’m ‘rich’.

Freddy
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

This is what Indiana did a few years back. They instituted a statewide county income tax with every county at different rates in EXCHANGE (not addition to) for capping property tax rates at 1% for residential and 2% for rentals. Any raises to county tax must be approved by voters. In addition they were able to reduce the state income tax to 3.23%. With a guaranteed minimum rate of 1% home values should increase and coupled with a county income tax (must be capped) many would not lose homes for inability to pay. People with a $300K home would pay… Read more »

Screw me once...
4 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

Sold 2 Chicago properties in 2018. (And thank God because prices have really come down in Wicker Park in the last 18 months). One more to go. Bought a house in Steuben county Indiana. County tax rates there are 2.1%. However, my property taxes there are only 3k a year. Paid 327k. (4000 sq foot home on 4 acres. That’s the size of roughly 55 regular Chicago lots. Also have a 2500 sq foot garage and private 3/4 acre clean stocked fishing/swimming pond AND an in ground 18×36 swimming pool). People are much nicer there too and crime is near… Read more »

Freddy
4 years ago

Sounds good. Will be doing that hopefully sooner than later. I would hate to be in a large city when it implodes. Don’t forget to have a Generac with propane just in case. Check out http://www.naturalnews.com. Mike Adams seems a little over the top at first but keeps mentioning Illinois problems. Even Khan Academy.com has studies on Illinois pension crisis mess.

MikeH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I think so too, Mark. I’d say the number of people fleeing the state alone proves you right. I also believe we’re still just at the beginning stages of a mass exodus.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Gov. Cuomo of New York gave a speech a few months ago about a $2.3 Billion shortfall predicted in state revenue for 2019. I can’t find a transcript of the speech anywhere but in short he started off saying that New York’s tax code is very progressive, and he is very proud of that, and then rattled off some statistics that something like 46% of the state income taxes are paid by the top 1%. He says that it is equitable but the problem is that the state become dependent on a small number of high earners to pay all… Read more »

James
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

I’m going to suggest something I’ve never seen or heard else probably because the left will rail against it massively. Instead of creating a progressive state income tax that clearly will create more and more wealthy people to live elsewhere why don’t we do quite the opposite. Let’s advocate for continuing the flat-tax but at a high enough rate to encourage the poor to move to another state? Aren’t they the net “takers” of our state income tax dollars as are governmental employees and their retirees, of course? A 6% flat tax is extremely burdensome to the poor and far,… Read more »

Platinum Goose
4 years ago
Reply to  James

James I actually think that’s a good idea. If we raise the taxes on everybody then maybe that will start to change peoples thinking about spending. More money is taken out of their check and then you explain to them it’s to pay for the new CTU contract. I’m guessing the CTU won’t have overwhelming support once it starts to hit the free stuff army in the pocketbook (funny the media characterizes 51% as overwhelming). The poor are already moving out for better opportunities in other states. Illinois does not have an environment conducive to creating jobs. Illinois politicians have… Read more »

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Platinum Goose

P.G., Illinois doesn’t want a pro job state, or a job creating environment. They want a progressive utopia which is antithetical to a capitalist state. People all the time seem exasperated with the state’s seemingly illogical and irrational legislation and policies. But as soon as you accept that the elected legislatures don’t want jobs, they don’t want pro capitalist policies, they don’t want a middle class that votes Republican, they don’t want more white people who own businesses, they don’t want any of that. Those ideas are not compatible with a progressive utopia where there exist only the lakeshore liberal… Read more »

Astonished
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

The degree to which one’s “mental map” (which is what people use to navigate life) matches up to actual (objective) reality is, in my opinion, the definition of sanity. Leftism (progressivism) is defined by a belief that reality can be changed by writing magic incantations on parchment (AKA statute law.) If you parse the actions of leftists, this is beyond obvious. You, I or anyone could recite endless figures, cite empirical studies, provide a perfect logic train, and have no effect on a leftist’s beliefs. This is because belief comes FIRST, it then defines what a person can and will… Read more »

Astonished
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Not only are we on the right side of the Laffer Curve, we remain in a Rip Van Winkle somnolence maintained by historically unprecedented borrowing. Anyone knows what comes next when a family, living the high life, begins borrowing to cover basic bills. Scale is irrelevant; the denouement of this Farce is certain, only its timing is yet to reveal. IL’s pension-obligation bonds, for example, are the equivalent of borrowing to pay the vig. What happens when politicians build (demand) that cannot even be serviced downstream? We all know the “lily pad” game, where a parasitic lily variety invades a… Read more »

Hank Scorpio
4 years ago

It comes down to the value the private worker is getting for that 3.5%, which as far as I can tell would just be used to keep the city’s head above water for a little while until the next crisis when the city comes back to the trough for more. Gee what a great deal… A lot of people who work downtown commute from the burbs — and those commutes suck. I certainly would not accept an offer downtown if it came with an additional 3.5%, but that’s just me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get enough suckers to… Read more »

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Hank Scorpio

I live less than 20 miles as the crow files from downtown but a commute on public trans is over an hour; and driving can take 90 miles easily in rush hour. Yet, when I occassionaly have to drive 15 miles in teh other direction to far NW Cook County, it takes a little over 20 minutes door to door. I think a lot of high income earners with families would secretly be happy if they could commute to Oak Brook instead of Oak St.

nixit
4 years ago

Dude, you keep making the same, tired arguments about NY and conveniently forget: 1) NY pension system has 6 tiers 2) NY teachers have to work 8-10 years longer than IL teachers to reach full vesting. That’s 8 more years of contributions and 8 less years of withdrawals. You do the math. 3) NY has stricter retirement eligibility rules 4) NY participates in social security Furthermore, NYC’s income tax only applies to city residents. Do you honestly think Chicago residents are going to vote for that? Sometimes, it scares me that you were an educator. I can only imagine what… Read more »

marco
4 years ago
Reply to  nixit

Furthermore NYC is arguably the capital of the world. Chicago is not. The shear number of executive jobs with fortune 1000 companies and high growth start ups dwarfs Chicago. Chicago should be looking at Dallas and Houston for comps, because thats whose eating our lunch.

MikeH
4 years ago
Reply to  marco

All this. Chicagoans can continue chanting their “we are a world class city” mantra until they’re blue in the face and it still won’t matter to the coastal progressives they’re trying so desperately to impress. To them, any place not on the coast is still just flyover country.

riverbender
4 years ago

Because for one thing with inflation soon the tax will be another broad tax hike that hits everyone. Consider how the Federal Alternative Minimum Tax was crafted to only apply to few individuals and look at it now after the effects of inflation.

Gemini
4 years ago

Bravo, Mark, for speaking the truth on this.

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A statewide concern: Illinois’ population decline outpaces neighboring states – Wirepoints on ABC20 Champaign

“We are not in good shape” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski told ABC 20 Champaign during a segment on Illinois’ latest population losses. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink in the 2010-2020 period and has lost another 300,000 people since then. Ted says things need to change. “It’s too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs and nobody trusts the government anymore. There’s just other places to go where you can be more satisfied.”

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