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Archive for the ‘BOHICA’ Category

Sales tax hike to hit Cook, collar counties on Aug. 1

Posted in BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Cost of Living, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Fat Bastard, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, The Center Square, Unions on July 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »

By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square

Consumers in six Illinois counties will be soon be paying higher sales taxes.

Transit funding legislation signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last December provided for the 0.25% increase to take effect on Aug. 1 in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

The tax hike is projected to generate $478 million a year as part of the $1.5 billion in annual transit funding provided in Senate Bill 2111.

State Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, said suburban taxpayers are bailing out the Chicago Transit Authority.

“We’re giving them a lifeline of money that we’re not getting anything in return for,” Reick said.

The Center Square asked Reick if higher taxes might drive people out of the area.

“Here in McHenry County, we’re obviously on the border with Wisconsin. I think people are going to make economic choices to drive up to Walworth, in my case, to buy gas and things like that,” Reick said.

SB 2111 also gave the Illinois Tollway Board the power to raise tolls.

Before the bill passed, state Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva, said he appreciated the desire for a state-of-the-art mass transit system.

“I don’t know how, though, we justify spending more money than we need after $2 billion of tax increases in the last few years,” Ugaste said.

Report continues here.

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Drivers have less than 2 weeks to weigh in on endless toll hikes, years of congestion

Posted in BOHICA, Clown Car, Cost of Living, IDOT, Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Tollway, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, The Chicago Way, Traffic, Unions on July 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Illinois drivers have only a short window to comment on a $26.5 billion capital plan that includes the largest passenger tollway hike in state history.

By Shaw Carlson | Illinois Policy Institute

Drivers face up to 15 years of additional construction and congestion on Illinois toll roads under the system’s proposed capital plan.

They’ll also pay toll hikes continuing long after that.

The Driving Connections plan, announced in June, would spur projects on the Illinois Tollway system until 2042. The $26.5 billion plan would be funded with proposed toll hikes that Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed off on six months before the plan was released.

Former Tollway board member and state Sen. Bill Morris told the Daily Herald that “it appears they decided to raise tolls, and then they threw this together quickly for justification.”

The Tollway proposes raising tolls starting Jan. 1 by about 45 cents per toll for passenger drivers and 30% for commercial drivers. It would be the largest passenger toll hike in state history.

You can tell the Tollway Board to reject the tax hike here.

The board is hosting public meetings until July 24 and taking public comments online until noon Aug. 3. The next regular board meeting at which the hike could be approved is Aug. 19.

Lawmakers driven by road needs or union politics?

The proposed toll hike is tied to politics around last year’s mass-transit bailout. Lawmakers redirected about $1 billion a year from the Road Fund toward Chicago-area public transportation, a move opposed by construction unions objecting to losing that road money. The toll hike became the price for labor union support.

House Speaker Chris Welch said unions wanted something to point to that would “help keep working people working and keep roads getting repaired.”

Pritzker appoints the tollway board, and two of its members hold leadership positions in construction unions.

The Driving Connections plan would fund road-widening, reconstruction, bridge work and congestion relief across interstates 355, 88, 294, 80, 94, 90 and the Route 390/I-490 O’Hare-area projects.

Many of those toll roads have recently seen extended periods of construction.

I-294 remains tied up in Central Tri-State work, I-90 was modernized during the previous capital plan and Route 390/I-490 work has been going on for years.

Illinois spent $90,400 per lane-mile in 2023 on state-owned roads — about $16,700 more than the Reason Foundation’s model calculated it should have cost.

Article continues here.

Once again, you can tell the Tollway Board to reject the tax hike here.

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Illinois’ first-in-U.S. crypto transaction tax applies even to losing trades

Posted in BOHICA, Economy, Elections, Fat Bastard, Illinois Policy Institute, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, The Chicago Way, The New Normal? on July 16, 2026| 1 Comment »

The tax also risks being challenged in court.

By Adam Gorcyca | Illinois Policy Institute

Illinois’ new tax on digital asset transactions risks hurting trading volume and market liquidity, making the state unfriendly for the industry and prompting legal battles.

The fiscal 2027 state budget, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed in June, puts a 0.2% tax on the value of transactions in assets such as NFTs, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, starting Jan. 1. Such transactions include exchanges, transfers or custodial services.

It’s the first such tax in the country. Affected businesses include crypto exchanges, trades, wallet and custody providers holding customer assets and firms transmitting digital assets between accounts. The law applies to any digital asset broker with a place of business in Illinois and to any brokers that gross $100,000 or more in annual digital asset receipts with Illinois residents.

Compliance will require brokers to collect and retain customers’ personal online transaction history, account information, mailing address, IP address and other data to indicate Illinois is the customer’s place of primary use.

Because the tax targets transactions rather than profits, brokers must collect it even when a trade loses money or when assets are transferred between accounts. For gains, the new tax will be an addition to Illinois’ current 4.95% individual income tax, which applies to capital gains.

Lawmakers expect the tax to generate $60 million a year.

Read more here.

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Pritzker doubled your gas tax and is sitting on the money

Posted in Aunt Blabby, BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Fools and their money, IDOT, Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Tollway, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, The Chicago Way on July 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The law promised major infrastructure improvements, but the state’s roads aren’t in any better shape than when it took effect seven years ago.

By Jess Plowman | Illinois Policy Institute

The state has collected billions of dollars in taxes for road improvements from the massive 2019 Rebuild Illinois law, but drivers aren’t seeing the benefits.

Illinois is taking in tax dollars faster than it’s spending them on improving infrastructure, and the roads are in no better shape than they were seven years ago, when the hallmark legislation of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s first term took effect.

Despite Road Fund revenue growing an average of 14% a year under the bill, fund expenditures grew by an average of just 5% yearly.

What’s more, most of that increased spending was front-loaded in the first two years of the program. Since 2022, Road Fund outlays have increased just 1.3% a year on average, not even the rate of inflation.

In other words, since passing Rebuild Illinois, the state is collecting more money for roads, but it isn’t spending more money on roads.

The Illinois Department of Transportation did not respond to the question of why spending on state roads and bridges appears to have leveled off.

Meanwhile, a “lockbox” provision in the Illinois Constitution prevents Road Fund money from being diverted to non-transportation spending (in theory). That, coupled with the imbalance between revenues and expenditures, has left the fund flush with cash. At the end of fiscal 2025 it held $3.7 billion.

Report continues along with video here.

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Pritzker Adds $800 Million a Year in New Taxes to Already High-Tax Illinois

Posted in BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, The Washington Free Beacon, Unions on June 21, 2026| 1 Comment »

Digital advertising, social media, crypto, prediction markets are targeted by governor |
Governor J.B. Pritzker, Democrat of Illinois, is seen in a photo provided by his office.

By Ira Stoll | The Washington Free Beacon

The governor of Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire Hyatt hotel heir who is a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is facing sharp criticism after signing into law a state budget that adds $800 million a year in new taxes to a state already in the worst third of the 50 states when it comes to imposing tax burdens.

Unleash Prosperity, a pro-growth, free-market-oriented group, called Pritzker “a man who never met a tax increase he didn’t embrace.” He’s more frugal when it comes to his own money. Pritzker had five toilets ripped out of a second mansion in what Cook County described as a fraudulent scheme to save $330,000 in property taxes.

The Illinois Policy Institute had urged Pritzker to veto the advertising tax on the grounds that “its revenue isn’t needed and it’s sure to be legally challenged.” “It’s another ‘Pritzker Two-Step’ budget: increase spending, then raise taxes and sweep dedicated revenues from other funds to fill another big budget gap. This is why Illinois residents pay the highest combined state and local tax rate in the country,” wrote Paul Vallas, a senior fellow at the Institute. “Pritzker has presided over at least 63 tax and fee increases.”

A senior fellow at the Tax Foundation, Jared Walczak, warns that, “the new tax opens the state up to costly litigation it has a very good chance of losing … the whole thing looks like something dashed off with very little thought.” The social media tax “is $6 per user per year, denominated as $0.50 per user per month for large social media platforms, and lesser amounts per user for smaller platforms,” he writes. “Illinois plans to impose a complicated, legally fraught new tax based on a few pages of confused, contradictory, and almost laughably incomplete legislative text embedded in the new budget.”

An editorial in the Washington Post is headlined “Pritzker’s social-media-tax belly flop.” Said the Post, “He’s preparing to run for president in 2028 and apparently believes that antagonizing successful businesses will play well with the liberal base. But voters tend to notice incompetence.” It notes that the digital ad tax “is designed to extract huge sums from Google, Meta and Amazon, whose executive chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Post.”

The Post concluded, “Ultimately, the biggest losers might be the people who actually use social media. Rather than just swallow the tax, companies may need to consider charging for subscriptions, erecting tiered paywalls and raising the rates for advertising. That will disadvantage small businesses who depend on social media to get out the word about their products. It might even mean some smaller platforms cease operations in Illinois.”

Report continues here.

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Noticed a surprise inside your property tax bill? – Part 2

Posted in 220, Barrington Education Association, Board of Education, BOHICA, Deception, District 220 referendum, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Illinois Federation of Teachers, OP/Ed, Overhead, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, School Districts, Transparency, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on May 19, 2026| 1 Comment »

 

Following up on our recent post attaching the transcript from the November 18, 2025, Board of Education meeting discussing DSEB, we thought a recent Public Comment from the April 21, 2026, District 220 Board of Education Meeting was worth publishing:

Barry Altshuler (Interim Board President): And, we have one comment today, Angela Wilcox. Welcome. Come forward.

Public Speaker, Angela Wilcox: Hi Board. It’s so nice to sit on this side of the table.

Altshuler: We miss you.

Wilcox: It is so good to see all of you guys, you all look great. I miss seeing you. It’s very nostalgic coming up here. And, President Altshuler, thank you for allowing me to speak, I showed up a minute late. I didn’t realize the new policy as far as signing up before 3:00 or before 6:00, but it’s distracting me.

But, I just wanted to say something tonight that is absolutely nothing that my former Board Members, Leah, Barry, Steve, heard me say before, which is to talk about DSEB borrowing. And, I know that I bored you guys to death with my discussions and we all voted together to not do DSEB borrowing for a couple of years that I was on the Board. And so just, you know, kind of speak to some people that haven’t heard me drone on about this before.

I just wanted to take a minute. There have been a couple of emails that came around today. I know that you guys aren’t voting on DSEB today and I, you know, sadly, and yet kind of happily, don’t really follow all of your Board meeting schedules anymore. So I didn’t know when you were voting, which is, which is on me.

But just as, you know, as a, as a community taxpayer and you know, someone whose kids attended 220, you know, it is, it’s, it’s something that I think is important because it’s, it’s an issue that a lot of constituents don’t really understand, like, what is DSEB borrowing?

And, I think that there’s a reason why, you know, if you Google this or put into, you know, ChatGPT, it’s called a backdoorreferendum. Basically a way to borrow money without having to go to the public and asking them for permission with a referendum to allow, you know, to borrow some money for capital projects.

And, I think that, unfortunately, and just, you know, the way that the optics are, when, you know this, when a DSEB borrowing comes out at the same time that constituents now are seeing the new, you know, the Referendum dollars coming out on our tax bills, it kind of hits a chord like, oh, wait a minute, what’s going on?

You know, there was, there was District resources spent for, you know, attorneys and for campaigns to make this Referendum go forward. It was successful and community members volunteering and then that happened. But then on top of it, then there’s a DSEB that’s put forward as well.

And, I know that there are always projects with as many buildings as we have and I know that we’ve always been short funded for summer projects. But, I just would encourage two things maybe going forward: One, if you can avoid DSEB borrowing in the future; I think that it was such a good practice that the Board really came together and united on as, you know, trying to have this as a goal, you know, for a few years. And, and then two, just to, you know, maybe explain to the public what this all includes so that there’s transparency and showing fiscal responsibility and just so that there isn’t the chatter because, you know…

Altshuler: Thank you.

Wilcox: … the optics are always important.

Altshuler: Thank you so much. Thank you.

To review the YouTube recording of these comment, click here.

Related: “Noticed a surprise inside your property tax bill?”

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Consumer advocates say Nicor’s rate hike is unreasonable, profit-driven

Posted in BOHICA, Cost of Living, Deception, Politics, Springfield, Taxes, The Center Square, Unions on May 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

A natural gas stove burner produces a blue flame while in use. Photo: KWON JUNHO / Unsplash

By Sean Reed | The Center Square

Consumer advocates have signaled heavy opposition to a proposed $221 million rate hike by Nicor Gas, arguing that the request is excessive, charging Illinoisans over five times what’s needed.

The request trailed just weeks behind the Illinois Commerce Commission’s approval of a $167.8 million hike last year. It would also be the sixth jump in delivery costs in the past decade.

Experts on the matter from the Citizens Utility Board, Illinois PIRG, and the Environmental Defense Fund came together early Monday to outline their opposition to the rate hike.

The same experts have also shared testimony to the ICC, which must approve or deny requested utility rate hikes before they can take effect.

Nicor’s spending has significantly increased since 2015 – mostly attributed to a state law that required the replacement of old delivery pipes. Despite the law’s sunset and all replacements having been completed by 2018, critics say the company’s spending has only continued to trend upward.

According to Jim Chilsen of the Citizen’s Utility Board, the proposed increase would add to the financial burden for all Nicor customers, 200,000 of whom are behind on their bills by $74 million total, as of last month.

“When the supply side of bills is so volatile, it just adds to the pain when you have a company like Nicor Gas going on a spending spree over the last decade and going before the commission to ask for six separate rate hikes. That’s been a hardship,” Chilsen said.

Report continues here.

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Noticed a surprise inside your property tax bill?

Posted in 220, Barrington Education Association, Board of Education, BOHICA, Deception, District 220 referendum, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Illinois Federation of Teachers, OP/Ed, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, School Districts, Taxes, Transparency, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)?, WTF on May 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In case you missed it and are curious about the increases in the D220 property taxes on your recent tax bills, the Board of Education discussion during the November 18, 2025, Board of Education Meeting provides some insight.

You may recall the 2024 $64 million referendum voted on by residents was widely publicized by District 220 in its “Transform 220” campaign. The District formed a community advisory committee and hosted public information forums to educate voters on what the $64 million bond would fund. They also promoted the initiative across their official website and social media channels, highlighting how the funds would be used.

In contrast, the expenditures quietly voted on by the Board at its December 2, 2025, to issue up to $5.4 million in Working Cash Fund bonds (DSEB), specifically for District capital projects, was barely mentioned prior to the Board’s vote and was done so without any buy in from the taxpayers.

Why weren’t these expenditures included in the November 2024 Referendum? We don’t know, especially since they were previously identified in the failed 2019 Referendum for $185 million in the Blueprint 220 Master Facility Plan.

While the District maintains that the overall 2024 referendum impact is consistent with their total budget projections, individual tax bills have spiked. The May 2026 property tax bills for Barrington CUSD 220 residents reflect the significant cumulative impact of both the $64 million referendum and the $5.4 million DSEB issuance approved by the Board in December 2025.

The full transcript of the November 18, 2025, discussion on DSEB is available here. We will follow up with some additional insight in future reports.

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ComEd electric customers brace for double-digit spike in bills

Posted in AI, BOHICA, Data Center, SNAFU, Unions, WBEZ Chicago on May 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

AI data centers are helping drive up costs for consumers as demand is beginning to threaten the power supply. | Image courtesy ComEd/Shutterstock

By Brett Chase | WBEZ Chicago

ComEd electric customers will see at least a 12% jump in monthly charges starting in June as big data centers increase demand for power and an unrelated consumer credit ends.

The average monthly residential bill is $107, according to ComEd, but that charge will jump to at least $120 as more high-tech operations suck up electricity. A credit related to nuclear power and renewable energy that was a temporary relief from high rates is also set to end at the end of this month.

The majority of the monthly increase is due to the credit expiring, but as much as a quarter of that jump in cost is due to the high demand of power and prices set by a multistate grid operator known as PJM Interconnection.

The upcoming increase follows a double-digit spike in electric bills a year ago credited almost entirely to the rise of data centers, most of which are powering artificial intelligence applications.

And the data center trend doesn’t appear to be slowing.

ComEd says there are more than 80 data centers in Northern Illinois using massive amounts of power. In a state filing last year, the utility said there were another 75 proposed commercial projects in the region that also would be large electricity users.

The estimated power use for those proposed operations is far more than the electricity currently being produced, ComEd said. It’s not clear how many of those proposed operations will actually go forward.

Article continues here.

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Cook County property taxes doubled the rate of inflation in past 30 years, Treasurer Maria Pappas study finds

Posted in 220, 300, BOHICA, Chicago Tribune, Cook, Cost of Living, County, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Real Estate, School Districts, Taxes, Unions on March 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

By Rick Pearson | Chicago Tribune

Property taxes imposed by government bodies within Cook County’s borders have grown at twice the rate of inflation over the past three decades, outpacing wage growth and driving an affordability crisis, a study by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office has found.

Pappas’ report, released Monday morning, condemns political leaders — many of them Democrats like herself — for exploiting loopholes in a state law designed to limit real estate tax increases. It calls on Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and the Democratic-led General Assembly to enact significant reforms and find ways for local taxing agencies to cut spending.

“Illinois in 2025 had the dubious distinction of having the highest residential property tax rate in the nation. Chicago has the highest commercial rate in the U.S.,” Pappas said in a statement accompanying the study. “It’s time for the governor, state lawmakers and local government leaders to come up with a reform plan that works for taxpayers.”

Pappas’ report, titled “How State Laws Failed to Stop Decades of Skyrocketing Property Taxes: A Case for Reform,” arrives as the Illinois Department of Revenue is completing its own study of the state’s property tax system, due at the end of July. But Pappas said in her report that it was time for politicians to act “rather than produce another report that gets put on a shelf to gather cobwebs.”

Her study also comes in an election year when high property taxes are sure to be a major campaign issue in Pritzker’s race for a third term versus Republican Darren Bailey, as well as other statewide and scores of state legislative races. But large-scale remedies, such as finding alternative sources of revenue like a general tax increase to offset property tax cuts, are less likely when lawmakers and Pritzker are seeking reelection — though political pressures are lessened after the November general election in a lame-duck session.

Pappas’ study found that taxing bodies within Cook County levied $19.2 billion in property taxes in 2024, up nearly 182% from the $6.8 billion in real estate taxes imposed in 1995. During that time, inflation rose by 91% and average wages increased by 161%, the report said.

“The annual increases in taxes are relentless, taking more and more money out of people’s pockets,” said Pappas, who has been treasurer since 1998 and who is seeking reelection in November while declaring her interest in a Chicago mayoral bid in 2027. “I see it every day in my office, with people wondering how they are going to pay their tax bills or even whether they can stay in their homes.”

Article continues here.

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