Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
3 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Alas, there is no reform in this bill. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. The political animals running the RTA will be free to operate their jobs program for friends and pals of pols while serving an ever shrinking number of paying customers. Fares should be doubled to reflect at least a token respect for taxpayers who will never set foot in an RTA train or bus and will now have to pay train and bus fare for the few customers the RTA has remaining. Fares need to increase and running mostly empty trains and buses needed to be stopped to reflect… Read more »
With this 60 percent cost increase for tolls (based on a current example of a 75-cent cost per toll), the greedy IL lawmakers are begging IL residents, at least those in the Chicago area, to relocate to another state. To understand how draconian this increase is, consider that SS payments are going up 2.8 percent next year. 60 percent is over 20 times greater than 2.8 percent. Put another way, a 2.8 percent increase in a 75-cent toll is 2.1 cents instead of 45 cents. This is outrageously awful how greedy IL lawmakers are allowed to continually abuse IL taxpayers… Read more »
So timely. Just drove down Cicero Ave. behind a large 65 passenger bus with one rider on it. This has been going on for 30 years or more. And they cry poor and beg for more money. It’s not about transporting people but more about providing high paying jobs to the politically connected. Elon should send DOGE to the RTA.
Congrats. You’re saved countless numbers of high paying useless jobs by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Why cut the fat just add to it
Gotta keep those empty Pace buses runing.
So much for the ‘lock box’ on gas tax monies for roads and bridges only. As many warned, the gas tax under Pritzker is just effectively a new slush fund to be used by Dems to prop up failed public unions. Dems can find corrupted ‘judges’ all over Chicago to rubber stamp their lawless ideas. Stealing from downstate is not a new trick for Chicago. Pritzker was in Peoria the other day talking up an incredibly meager road project of widening less than a miles worth of two lane road – A project which should have easily been funded by… Read more »
Dems work in the dark.
The tollway tax increase is a tax on suburban residents. Stop taxing suburbs to bail out Chicago! There’s no mention of CTA cutting wasteful spending, stopping funding for projects that they don’t have the money for, or cutting political hires working at CTA. Clean up the waste at CTA. Otherwise let Chicago pay for it. Pritzker and Dems need to stop stealing from the road fund and actually spend it to fix roads. That’s what the excessive gas tax is for, not CTA and Chicago. Isn’t diverting these funds illegal since they’re not using road funds for its stated purpose?… Read more »
NW & Western suburbs to be exact. Why don’t they add tolls to the Kennedy & Edens? Why are we paying for them to drive free? Where once there was a tollboth every 10 miles on I-90, there’s now one at every entrance or exit ramp since reconstruction. We also knew we couldn’t trust Springfield when it came to the “lockbox”. They always had the key.
I suspect the Edens doesn’t have tolls because the north shore AWFLs and their limousine liberal spouses prefer it that way.
They’re not riding transit. Less than 50% of the 2012 peak numbers.
Let’s see what the ONLY place that’s in the black and has over 2 BILLION dollars in the bank and we raise the tolls.
How about raising the fee’s for the people who actually use it, I don’t know any other place that hasn’t raised their prices in nearly 10 years and wonders why they are loosing money.
How about raising the fees for the people who actually use it 60%? like the tollway?
They say fares aren’t being raised, except that the transit boards already plan 10% fare increases for 2026. And a 1/4% increase in sales tax, while disgusting, will hardly be noticed.
Fares have hardly kept pace with inflation. A doubling will get them a little closer.
More bureaucracy what a surprise. Expect things to get way worse with Chicago and Cook County controlling half of the new board.
Not real happy about the toll increase which makes some tolls excessive for the miles traveled. There’s a lot of tolls I can avoid and I’m sure others are thinking the same thing. Don’t think it will be the windfall in tolls they’re expecting.
Unfortunately, most drivers are lazy, won’t do what’s necessary to avoid tolls. Same apathy that re-elects same politicians over and over.
So if they do not receive there tollway windfall they will push for taxing the drivers for the amount of miles you drive across all roads a VMT tax.
If you mean taking regular streets instead of toll roads, you lose that way, too. That’s more gas you’re using, more wear and tear on your car because of more stopping and starting, and more travel time.
Democrats are applauding themselves by hiking sales taxes and tolls and elbowing out citizens in a “new” transportation authority – leaving them with a 20% vote in a snarl of democratic cronies appointed to keep the status quo. With a supermajority, why did it even take until 4am? Just keep raising taxes and spending like the money will never go away!
Perhaps I have been misinformed but it was my understanding that the Motor Fuel Tax will be applied statewide to help the Chicago Transit mess that, if history is any guide, will be a mess once again in the future looking for more handouts. If nothing else it give me another reason to vote against my downstate Democrat Representative.
That is really the point here. RTA’s political animals received a huge federal Covid subsidy and treated it as if the temporary funding was permanent. This is absolutely malfeasance. Instead of throttling back their spend to reflect their financial reality, using the temporary federal funding to cushion the transition, these incompetent political animals extorted matching funds from Illinois taxpayers to make up for the entirely predictable ending.
Every one of the political animals running RTA/CTA/Metra/Pace should be out on their keyster and have their pensions pulled for this criminal mismanagement.
Should have cut downstate transit funding to zero. Those voters don’t want tax dollars going to these types of things anyway. Just raise the fares down there.
Great idea and I am all for it. Why pay our assorted transit district sales taxes along with future State funding to run empty busses all around the downstate county that I reside in?
While often biting, I typically agree with your comments – especially “it’s what the voters wanted.” That said, this is a truly ignorant comment. I’m surprised TBH.
No. Raise the fares up north. Double them and you’re still behind inflation.
That’s certainly an option. Although the voters up north want more free goodies and the other guy to pay. That’s what the voters tell us in each and every election. In this case, political leaders decided to raise taxes elsewhere instead of raising fares. They even cut the budget going to downstate transportation. Those voters down there don’t like subsidies so they are getting what they want. That’s how politics are done in this state.
Everyone like what’s going on being told what your going to do without any say, any input, any vote on tax increases. Every corner you turn more more more in taxes collar counties footing the bill for theft of public funds, this is going to get even worse with these clowns in Springfield, vote them out forget party affiliation, hope socialism is your thing because this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Lol…is anyone really surprised here? This deal was worked out months ago in a dark smoke filled back room, splitting up the pie. Sure, take $200M tax payer money taken from them for road maintenance and construction down state and give it to a failed, overbuilt, inefficient, underused transit system for Chitcago that most people in Illinois will never-ever use. Raise tolls (that was a given) and increase sales tax…thanks Springfield…you really have the tax payers back…shall we bend-over?
Raise tolls? Raise sales taxes? Two taxes you can’t avoid, unlike liquor and cigarette taxes? Being gone for 4 years, how much will the tolls be? Need a debit card? (I remember days of $.35. Toss a quarter and a dime in the bucket). Anyone protesting?
They charge you double for tolls if you don’t have the I-Pass. Now people don’t see the taxes on a daily basis. That’s what makes this a perfect tax for the politicians to take just a bit more. Now they have the package delivery tax in their holster for a future budget.
That’s actually considered long-term planning in Illinois.
So true about not seeing the taxes on a daily basis. Most of us have the auto-replenishment in place for I-Pass. Maybe when people see their I-Pass being replenished more often, they’ll realize how distasteful this increase is. Gotta love the inflation adjustment every year, too. Death by a thousand cuts.
Remember when the tolls were introduced as temporary until roads were paid for? That was some time ago! Then they were justified for maintenance. Now to pay for public transportation many are fearful to use. Politicians, especially in Illinois are like STIs, the gift that keeps giving.
Yeah, the Red Line extension was supposed to get another 2 billion to carry a couple thousand possible riders.
If only that low. Total cost now over $5.7 billion — a billion per mile. Will come to $1.8 million per ride. This is fiscal malfeasance on intergalactic scale. https://wirepoints.org/chicagos-red-line-extension-cost-now-projected-to-exceed-1-billion-per-mile-biden-trying-to-lock-it-in-wirepoints/
That project needs to be stopped cold.
Left IL in 2021. Follow news daily. Between property taxes and all these other taxes, have probably saved at least $60K in 4 years. Can’t believe numerous ways residents getting screwed daily by fees and taxes being raised or reallocated to support unions or little used transit in this case. And then Democrats just applaud how smart they are. Is anything ever cut in IL? Get a chill realizing all the new taxes we’ve missed by moving. But, have less and less sympathy for those who stay and don’t fight.
It’s funding for union jobs, not transportation
Jobs for pals of pols.
On our way out of this state within the next 8 months. Can’t wait.