Editorial: Opposing Mayor Brandon Johnson's tax-increase ideas is not a criminal act

Chicago Tribune

a day ago

What do you think of when someone uses the term, 'crime of the century?'
The O.J. Simpson murder trial, maybe? Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb's infamous murder?
The kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh's son often is given that sobriquet.
But for Chicago Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski, that term apparently applies to the lack of what she deems to be a sufficiently progressive income tax in Illinois.
Describing a state-imposed system of taxation that she believes to be overly regressive during a Tuesday appearance before the City Club of Chicago, she said, 'This to me is the crime of the century right here.'
If so, 2.7 million of Jaworski's fellow Illinoisans are aiders and abettors.
That's how many voted against Gov. JB Pritzker's bid to amend the state Constitution to allow for a progressive income tax. The 55% to 45% margin in the 2020 vote wasn't close.
Jaworski also may want to notify the authorities about the crime committed by 184,890 Chicagoans who voted last year against Mayor Brandon Johnson's Bring Chicago Home tax. More than 52% of voters rejected that progressive proposal to quadruple the real estate transfer tax for property sales above $1 million in order to fund homelessness programs.
For progressives like Johnson (and those in his administration) who focus obsessively on revenue generation and give lip service at best to reducing government spending to plug what are now yearly deficits, the city's inability to legally impose its own income tax or to broaden sales taxes to cover services rather than just goods is all that's standing in the way of implementing this administration's big-spending agenda.
They fail to understand — even though Chicago voters have sent this clear message more than once — that their constituents don't trust them to be responsible with any substantial new sources of funding coming from Chicagoans' paychecks. That's why these ballot initiatives keep failing, always to the surprise of those who sponsor them.
Jaworski in her comments to the City Club noted that she'd lived in Illinois for 36 years and during that time had watched the state become far more liberal than it was in the 1990s and before. 'This (existing tax policy) doesn't reflect moderate or progressive values,' she said.
She's right to some degree about Illinois' political evolution, at least when it comes to selecting the politicians who will govern the state and represent its interests in Congress. But many voters in this heartland state remain pragmatic centrists, reflecting their Midwestern sensibilities. They understand how corruption, waste and the outsize influence of public sector unions have held Illinois and Chicago back from reaching their potential, both in terms of economic growth and quality of life for their residents.
It's strange to say — after two-plus years of staunch opposition to Johnson's taxing and spending plans from ordinary voters, lawmakers in Springfield and members of the City Council — that this administration still doesn't get it. To win the right to increase taxes, the mayor has to prove to those who hold the purse strings that his government can be trusted with the funds.
And to win that trust, Johnson has to prove that sacrifice goes more than one way. Those who bankrolled his 2023 election victory such as the Chicago Teachers Union and other public sector unions must play a part in stabilizing the city's finances as well as the 'ultra-rich,' one of the derisive terms Johnson uses for those with means.
There's surely a discussion to be had around broadening the state's sales tax to include services as well as goods. Other tax ideas might well gain more acceptance if the public could be assured the revenues would be used wisely — say, to address abysmally underfunded pensions for public employees rather than to expand already-bloated state and local governments.
And there are merits to many of the arguments Jaworski otherwise made in her speech about how the state has shortchanged its municipalities — not just Chicago — over the years, an issue that's come to a head for Chicago as it stares down a 2026 budget deficit topping $1 billion at last count.
But until this administration proves it can make the tough decisions that businesses and households routinely face in the ups and downs of life, Team Johnson will keep hitting brick walls in their efforts to win broad new taxing authority or garner substantially more help from a state government that also is tapped out.
And it's no crime for anyone to say so.