Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed head tax on companies with more than 200 employees appeared dead after the City Council’s Finance Committee on Monday rejected the mayor’s budget. But oh, no, no, mayoral ally Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, chair of the Budget Committee, said at the City Club on Wednesday. The mayor has a veto, and opponents of his head tax don’t have the votes to override.
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Greising: Gov. JB Pritzker pushed back on the transit bill. He needs to do that with pensions.
As a sweeping restructuring of the public transit systems in the Chicago area neared an up-or-down vote last week, it was loaded with enough new revenue ideas to fill a progressive’s wish list. A “billionaire’s tax” on realized investment gains? Check. Expanded real estate transfer taxes? Those, too. Taxes on delivery services and concert tickets, a congestion tax and a ride-share tax? Of course. The Tribune’s editorial board reacted with dismay and called for them to scrapped.
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Greising: Many of the ideas for closing Chicago’s budget gap won’t make a dent
The Chicago Financial Future Task Force, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson early this year to give him ideas — and political cover — for closing a projected $1.15 billion budget gap, has issued its first report. It’s a smorgasbord of ideas, many of them already familiar, that comes just weeks before Johnson’s scheduled Oct. 16 budget address.
