I don’t believe that the editors of the Wall Street Journal understand Cook County at all. After cataloging the tax increases that state and local governments here have put into place and noting the successful opposition to the sweetened soft drinks tax, they remark:
Here’s hoping that the spirit of ‘17 prevails when Illinois voters go to the polls next year. For the moment, the Tribune is documenting more uncharacteristic blue-state behavior. One might have expected the death of the soda tax to inspire local pols to consider new ways to soak the middle class as well as the hated top 1%—and this should never be ruled out in Chicago. But the Trib says that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is now pursuing a different approach…
That approach is belt-tightening. But there’s a problem. Cook County’s single biggest expense item is public employee pensions, those are commitments that is beyond the county’s power to escape, and no amount of belt-tightening will pay for it.
The greater factor they’re missing is that for Cook County Democratic politicians in general and Chicago politicians in particular increased taxes are what’s called a “valence issue”. They don’t disagree on their necessity or desirability. They just compete with each on how high they’re going to raise them.
Cook County Republicans? They don’t even field candidates for many offices. You can’t win an election in which you don’t run. And there is no mass exodus from the Democratic Party going on here. People will oppose individual issues as they have the soft drinks tax. But they won’t oppose the party more generally.
Here’s the one-line summary: every candidate who wins in next year’s elections here will be running on a platform of higher taxes.
