Cook County Board President Todd Stroger had the dubious distinction -- the only one in his undistinguished career -- of raising the most taxes in Cook County, introducing and pushing for a hike in the Cook County Sales Tax. Stroger wanted 1 percent but his more fanatical tax-lovers and citizen-haters like Joan Patricia Murphy wanted more -- can you believe Murphy wanted to increase the sales tax 2 percnt to what? Protect her job, perqs and patronage?
Then came Deborah Sims, the Cook County Board commissioner who voted to repeal 1/2 percent or half of Stroger's oppressive sales tax increase so she could tell voters and taxpayers she is on their side.
Then Stroger vetoed the rollback of his one percent tax, which would have gone to only .5 percent.
Today, two-faced liar Sims backed off of her support of taxpayers and decided to NOT override Stroger's veto of the sales tax rollback, singlehandedly undermining the effort to ease the tax burden on Cook County residents.
The list of people who MUST be ousted from Cook County government, if you care about the cost of living in this county, has now grown by one to include Deborah Sims. She should resign in disgrace and step down from the county board. She is the ultimate flip-flopper and a true pathetic anti-taxpayer loser!
She should be ashamed of herself.
It's very possible Sims was playing a little game all along, to pretend to support the rollback to get pats on the back for doing the right thing, and then voting no to NOT override Stroger's veto.
The sooner we clean out the Cook County Board the sooner taxpayers can find relief. Until that election next year, the tax-leviers like Stroger, Murphy and Sims have a headlock on our pocketbooks and they clearly do not care about the public interest.
Tragic but typical of the Machine Politics that puts the interests, benefits and patronage of government officials way above the interests of the public.
Vote Sims out of office. Vote Murphy out of office. Vote Stroger out of office, not just for his tax policies but for his pathetic failed track record in office.
UPDATE: 9:15 pm
We should remember, though, the courageous fight led by County Commissioner Liz Gorman with the support of Commissioners Larry Suffredin and John Daley. If it wasn't for Gorman, this fight would not have gone as far as it has. Gorman and her allies on the board have refused to give up. Even though Stroger's oppressive anti-taxpayer veto has prevailed thanks to Sims, the fact is that the entire saga of flip flopping and challenges to the Stroger tax has been a victory for the public and another loss for Stroger. Sustaining the veto has only secured his certain fate in February to lose in the Democratic primary, remembered mainly as a spoon-fed, pampered politician who rose to power on his late father's back, only to fall off forgetting that his allegiance should be to the best interests of ALL of the taxpayers of Cook County.
There is no doubt this battle will scar Stroger's re-election chances and possibly open the door to a new, more progressive leadership that is sensitive more to the needs of the public than selfish political interests. Hopefully, Sims will also go down next year.
-- Ray Hanania
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3 comments:
I saw "Cool Hand Luke" a while back. How about we boot out Stroger, Sims, and the rest of them, chain them together and make them live in tents and dig roads for a couple of years? It would be the first time they'd actually done honest work!
I can definitely understand the taxpayers reasons for being angry at Commissioner Sims , however everything is not as on sided as it seems. I cannot advocate for Stroger, but I have known Commissioner Sims personally for years and she is very bothered by the fact that citizens feel that she has other motives. After talking with her I found out that she felt that raising the taxes would be a good idea because of the following reasons:
1. Most of the money that we pay in taxes goes to the city, 1/10th of .1 cents ( yes and I am quoting this directly from her) goes to the county. So the county has to pay for health care through these county hospitals,whenever you buy a house and the deeds get printed, paying county workers etc. everything that has the cook county seal on it the county has to pay for and with what money?
2. If we cut taxes even more people will loose jobs so if the tax cut passes get ready to possibly be unemployed
3. She is trying to make sure that health care facilities for people who do not have insurance ( a big debate in Washington now) stays open. Otherwise these people will get sick and be untreatable.
No one wants to pay more in taxes but at least get the real facts before you go on the internet to blast someone when you don't know what really goes on.
Thansk Judith for your comments. I think that Ms. Sims should apologize for telling people she supported the repeal,w hich would have cut the sales tax increase from 1 percent to .5 percent and wouldn't take affect until next year, which means Stroger could have collected the full 1 cent sales tax for 18 months, before cutting it back. But Stroger is greedy and won't cut back county services. They spend too much and they do very little. Don't defend the politicians whow ant you to think it is about race, or politics. It is about them padding their salaries, patronage and benefits. It's all about them.
thanks
Ray Hanania
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