Just like Prickwrinkle spending $200 million she hadn't collected (and had no realistic chance of collecting), Rahm just did the same thing:
- The number of plastic and paper bags Chicagoans used to haul home their groceries dropped by 45 percent after city officials imposed a 7-cents-per-bag tax in an effort to keep the disposable sacks out of area landfills, city budget documents reveal.
Because of the drop in use, the bag tax is now expected to generate $5 million for the city this year. When the tax went into effect in February, city officials had initially expected it to add $9.2 million to the city's coffers in that time, according to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2018 spending plan.
The "keeping the bags out of landfills" was a laughable argument, similar to Prickwrinkle claiming the "health" of certain communities was the driving force behind the soda tax. Have you seen how plastic bags come packaged? You can fit a few thousand into a shoe box.
It was a money grab. Again. And Rahm "successfully" altered peoples' buying habits with his tax. People bought canvas sacks, or Tyvek bags, or just reused the ones they had. We personally did more of our shopping in the suburbs anyway to avoid the bottled water tax - the bag tax was just another reason to continue.
But now ::surprise!:: Rahm has a $4 million hole (approximately) in his budget that he must fill. The stories that the increased cell phone tax or some other fee will make up the difference is pure speculation. No one can accurately predict how consumers will react to the increasing tax burden, though the Cook County Board discovered to their dismay that enough pissed of taxpayers started effecting sales tax revenue by the millions. Tens of thousands of children aren't in CPS anymore, meaning their parents have left the city, yet taxes still go up?
We hope that Chicago and Cook County are on the verge of a taxpayer revolt.
It was a money grab. Again. And Rahm "successfully" altered peoples' buying habits with his tax. People bought canvas sacks, or Tyvek bags, or just reused the ones they had. We personally did more of our shopping in the suburbs anyway to avoid the bottled water tax - the bag tax was just another reason to continue.
But now ::surprise!:: Rahm has a $4 million hole (approximately) in his budget that he must fill. The stories that the increased cell phone tax or some other fee will make up the difference is pure speculation. No one can accurately predict how consumers will react to the increasing tax burden, though the Cook County Board discovered to their dismay that enough pissed of taxpayers started effecting sales tax revenue by the millions. Tens of thousands of children aren't in CPS anymore, meaning their parents have left the city, yet taxes still go up?
We hope that Chicago and Cook County are on the verge of a taxpayer revolt.
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