Cook County agrees to repeal hated soda tax

In a move that everyone wanted, but that had heads scratching as to how best to do it, without rancor, the much maligned sweetened beverage tax will be repealed on Dec. 1 of this year, after deep negotiations from Cook County commissioner, it was learned late Friday night.

Commissioners were responding to constituent complaints that were loud and insistent that they were already burdened by high sales tax, a Chicago city bag tax, and increased water and sewer taxes; and for Chicago residents increased property taxes to pay for pensions for municipal workers, and and fire and police; plus the specter of another one to help pay for Chicago Public Schools, who have been awash in red ink.

Families complained that it was harder to meet that weekly grocery challenge,and that the tax crept into other beverages, besides soda pop, forcing those with means to travel to nearby Lake County for a Prohibition era style fix.

Some local distributors refused to deliver beverages and others cancelled contracts with local stores, and some laid off sales staff, many of whom were heads of households.

“Mom and Pop” stores suffered the most, as the tax affected not only their overheads, but their bottom lines, as more and more consumers either cut back or eliminated, or shopped outside the county.

“Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison announced Friday that he and 11 colleagues have reached an agreement to end the tax, giving them enough to override a veto by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. They say a vote on the deal will be held on Tuesday and if it is passed, the tax will end on December 1,” reported local affiliate, ABC7Chicago.

“The news of the repeal comes a day after Commissioner John Daley said he no longer supports the tax. Others followed suit, including Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, another close ally of Preckwinkle,” they added.

With close allies defecting, the writing was on the wall for Preckwinkle after she had threatened layoffs with the loss of the expected $200 million, and also that the absence of the money would affect public health and safety provisions, which had 75 percent earmarked for them.

Earlier she had said that she was going to fund health care in case of cuts from Washington, yet in recent days she was forced to admit that first and foremost it was about revenue. As she stated a day earlier, it was “chosen as a revenue generator.”

Threatening, this time, she gave weight to cuts with a specific number: 11 percent across the board. She also added that "Those sort of reductions could substantially impact the services provided by the public defender's office and the state's attorney."

"That is bologna, quite frankly. There are a lot of ways we could cut," Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison countered.

“As the lead sponsor of the repeal, Morrison believes revenue can be generated by temporarily freezing infrastructure projects and cutting government waste.”

It’s no secret that regressive taxes, much beloved of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, are ultimately self-defeating, as people find a way out of them. But Chicago kicked the can down the road for decades on pension debt, lacked the creativity to look at other ways, such as city receiverships reminiscent of New York CIty in the 1970’s, or taking a transactional tax on trades by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the so-called LaSalle Street tax, touted by others.

Preckwinkle who has many fans for her stance on social issues, especially the jailing of black and brown offenders on low level crimes, was beginning to lose her home field advantage with the upcoming 2018 election, as her name would be on the ballot, along with the others on the Board.

It was a sure bet, had she kept the tax, that she would have been defeated and there were others waiting in the wings for a shot at leading the nation's second largest county. And, a smart politician never gambles all of her political capital on a single issue.

“County Board members aren’t off the hook, either. It will be their job to poke and press every cavity of the county budget. The board’s budget hearings for department heads are coming soon. Will board members press for cuts? Or, having killed the soda tax, will they nonsensically try to spend the money it would have provided?”, said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial.

They also issued this caution: “Taxpayers, county officials know you’re watching them closely. They know you’re invested. You just rose up to defy their soda tax. And they know that if they try to introduce another cockamamie tax to balance their 2018 budget, you’ll be back at the barricades.”

With that caveat, it’s back to the drawing board for Cook County, because, as one legendary heroine said, in part, "Tomorrow is another day.”