George Cardenas: We don't need a grocery tax. We need a smarter City Hall.

01-07-2025

Once again, Chicago finds itself debating yet another tax — this time on groceries, a primary component of our lives.
Let's put the facts on the 'counter' for all to see. Putting a tax on food is probably the most regressive idea imaginable. A grocery tax disproportionately burdens working families, seniors and low-income residents. Many of our residents, specifically in minority neighborhoods, are already struggling with inflation, stagnant wages and rising property taxes.
Gov. JB Pritzker was right to shelve the idea of a grocery tax at the state level. City Hall should follow suit.
But more than rejecting this tax, we must confront a larger truth. City Hall doesn't have a revenue problem — it has a spending problem. And layering regressive taxes on overburdened taxpayers is not a solution — it's a signal that City Hall would rather pass the buck than tighten its own belt.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a historic influx of federal funds papered over our fiscal flaws. But those funds are drying up, and the structural problems they masked remain.
Chicago's property tax levy has more than doubled in the past 10 years. According to the Cook County clerk, the property tax levy grew faster than the city's overall taxable value. From 2012 to 2023, the levy increased 102%, while taxable value increased only 53%.
Annual property tax increases are not the only problem created by City Hall. What about the future bills now owed by taxpayers? In a recent Civic Federation report, City Hall debt now exceeds $29 billion. What does this mean? A squeeze on property owners, renters and small businesses alike for years to come.
Alas, some bad news has yet to arrive in the neighborhoods. Skyrocketing property tax bills will start appearing. Some low-income residential areas, Englewood for example, will see hikes of over 100%. With some neighborhoods at less than an 80% property tax collection rate, the loss of homes and small businesses will continue.
Meanwhile, new developments have slowed, commercial vacancies are high and property tax appeals are rising. On the one hand, we are pushing residents out by expecting them to pay more for less. And on the other hand, where is the 'open for business' sign much sought after by those who would like to invest? What is required is structural change. Simply, the costs of services must decrease, while the quality of the services must improve.
Nowhere is the 'currently under maintenance' sign more visible than downtown. Once the city's economic engine, downtown is buckling under the weight of commercial vacancies and disinvestment. Tourists and office workers are avoiding downtown. Why? Businesses, especially in retail and hospitality, face higher security costs and reduced foot traffic. When businesses can't protect their merchandise, when families don't feel safe using public transit and when tourists start skipping Chicago for other cities, tax revenues dry up. It's simple math.
We don't need another study. Recently, City Hall announced it had hired Ernst & Young to conduct an operational review — at a potential cost of over $3 million. But why pay a consultant to tell us what we already know? The data for the solutions is in City Hall's annual budget and audited annual financial statements. Places to find the solutions are already right there. There is simply no need for yet another study.
For example, start with the ballooning of contractual services. Then, go to overtime abuse and outdated staffing mandates. Then turn to our pension funds. They continue to underperform, losing billions in potential returns because of high-fee, low-yield investment strategies.
If Chicago is serious about restoring fiscal health without inflicting more pain on working families, it must embrace structural reform:
The grocery tax debate is a microcosm of City Hall's deeper dysfunction: reflexively turning to taxpayers to fill budget gaps, instead of confronting inefficiencies.
Chicago doesn't need another regressive tax. It needs a mindset that believes working families deserve a break, that believes in managing smarter and that is willing to do the hard work of reform.
Let's start by putting the grocery tax idea where it belongs — on the shelf.

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Economic growth forecast for SW La.

All forecasts for Southwest Louisiana show economic growth — some areas faster than others — over the next year. Much will depend on new development projects and the speed of startup, according to Dan Groft, director of the H.C. Drew Center for Business and Economic Analysis at McNeese State University. Groft — who spoke Tuesday to members of the Kiwanis Club of Lake Charles — said Southwest Louisiana has the highest gross domestic product per capita in the state. 'What we produce in terms of output — even though it doesn't take a lot of labor per capita — is higher and that's mostly due to Cameron,' he said. 'Cameron has 4,600 people and they produce tons of manufacturing down there … and they export way more than they import.' Calcasieu also remains the gaming capital of the state. 'When you look at total adjusted revenues, we're up pre-COVID levels even with Horseshoe (then Isle of Capri) being closed for a good bit of that time,' he said. 'If you look at gaming per admission, revenue per admission, how much each person spends, we are way above 2020.' Total employment, however, remains very low by historical standards. Calcasieu has 13,000 fewer jobs than it had in February 2021. 'We are by far the lowest area in the state,' he said. 'We had COVID, then Laura and we have not recovered since. We knew some of the construction was going to come down because all those plants down in Cameron were finished. We didn't predict COVID.' The hospitality and leisure industry also took a major hit in 2020. 'It was going up, then comes COVID and Laura,' he said. 'That was unexpected so we took a double hit when you count hospitality and construction on unemployment in this area.' He said construction jobs remain low but when new LNG facilities reach Final Investment Decision, those will come. That will be followed by permanent jobs for people to run the facilities when they are complete. The rest of the employment fields 'are not too bad.' 'When you start looking at jobs and looking at your economy, you have to break it down,' Groft said. 'If I took out construction and looked at how we were growing I'd say it's not great but it's not terrible, either. It's kinda flat.' The good news, he said, is the region's population is growing. 'We are having an increase in domestic migration in Calcasieu, Cameron and Jeff Davis. Calcasieu people are starting to move back. We have grown faster than the state has the past two years so we're doing OK.' Parish sales tax collections are also up. Louisiana economy Louisiana was one of the slower states to get back to pre-COVID employment levels. 'We were hit hard with leisure and hospitality — that's big in New Orleans and that's big here — because we had some devastating disasters here and New Orleans and Houma had Hurricane Ida. We're still lagging behind some of our southern peers, but we're making progress. We still have a long way to go because we lost a lot of people and we lost a lot of jobs.' The larger employers in the state are in the fields of trade, transportation and utilities. 'That's a big sector. That includes retail trade, wholesale trade, jobs where you need a lot of people,' Groft said. 'Other things like manufacturing produce a ton of output but low employment. It has 18 percent of total output, but it's only about 7 percent of total employment.' About 11 percent of the state's workers are employed in the leisure and hospitality fields. 'When you look at other industries, some of them have been pretty flat,' Groft said. 'We need people. We need the workman to work jobs, build things, perform services.' Louisiana has the third lowest median household income in the nation. 'The problem is we have a very high poverty rate,' he said. 'We're a poor state and we have a very unhealthy population and that can hurt economic growth, as well. Lake Charles has a 17.8 percent poverty rate.' But Groft does have good news: Louisiana is finally seeing population growth, it offers a low cost of living and electricity rates are far lower here than the national average. National economy 'The national economy has actually been doing pretty good since 2020,' Groft said. 'We've had pretty general growth over the past fews; we had a couple of dips because all of these companies were stocking up on imports — imports don't increase gross domestic product — but then we saw a quick turnaround in 2025.' Total nonfarm employment is also growing each month. 'We are growing, we are not falling. And earnings are outpacing inflation.' The national economy is projected to grow about 2.5 percent, he said.