Who will get hit with political blame as pop, beer prices rise in coming weeks?

It was with some interest that I read reports about how the price of a can of pop or beer will go on the rise in coming weeks due to the rising cost of producing the aluminum for the pop-top cans that are the all-too-popular way of selling such beverages.

Cost of the cans could boost price of the pop/beer

The tariffs being imposed by President Donald Trump are expected to result in rising costs that will be passed along to the consumer.

IT SEEMS THAT both Coca-Cola and MillerCoors are saying they’re going to have to boost the price of buying pop or beer respectively because they will need to recover the costs of producing the cans.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the cost of a case of beer could rise by $1. A hike that could be copied by many other manufacturers of canned beverages.

We all saw last year the outrage that some people got worked up when Cook County tried to impose a tax on sweetened beverages – particularly pop. The carbonated beverage industry made sure to let people know that the prices went up due to government officials.

They also inspired the political outrage that wound up pressuring many of the Cook County Board members who voted for the pop tax (which as I recall boosted the cost of a bottle of Coca-Cola by about 20 cents) to vote to rescind the fee.

THERE WERE PEOPLE who were seriously worked up into a frenzy over the very notion that anyone would try to boost the cost of their pop bottle by anything!

Now, we could have the cost of cases of pop back on the rise not all that long after people thought they had somehow forced the price to drop back down. Considering that there also are hints that Cook County officials may wind up considering to restore some version of the sweetened beverage tax once Election Day has passed and incumbents will be safe from the wrath of gassy pop drinkers for four years, it’s likely that the price we now pay will shoot up soon – and significantly.

TRUMP: Will costs from tariffs cause outrage

So what happens?

Will the wrath be directed entirely upon county officials? Will we have some people who will want to blame the aluminum-related part of the cost increase on the county as well?

OR COULD WE wind up seeing this Age of Trump taken down by the Wrath of Beer-Guzzlers. How dare you do anything that causes the cost of my Bud to go up?

I could see where people who don’t get concerned about all the legitimately-stupid things Trump has done as president would get offended by something trivial; we all have a selfish side to us – and will only get worked up when something purely personal impacts us all.

Or could the Teflon nature (as in no-stick) of the Trump presidency continue to apply here. People will whine and complain about the higher prices they have to start paying for their favorite beverages, but won’t be capable of bringing themselves around to blaming The Donald.

It would amuse me if certain types of people wind up figuring out mental contortionist tricks allowing them to justify blaming Cook County for any price increases that occur on beverages of all types.

PRECKWINKLE: Will some be eager to blame Toni

AFTER ALL, THERE were people all geared up to do a serious campaign against county Board President Toni Preckwinkle based off the tax pop issue. Only they wound up having a political mediocrity like Robert Fioretti to back; which means she cleaned his clock with ease back in the primary election cycle, and there’s no one challenging her come Nov. 6.

Either that, or else they’ll just down another beer or a few while complaining about the additional cost they had to pay in order to put themselves in a state of intoxication.

  -30-

How far are Ill. ideologues out-of-touch

It’s official. Toni Preckwinkle is now the Democratic chairman for Cook County; despite the fact that – not long ago – people were speculating she was “history” and a cancer on her political party.

PRECKWINKLE: New 'firsts' for her resume

How much you want to bet that come next week, Michael Madigan will remain in place as the Democratic chairman for all of Illinois?

IT’S VERY LIKELY that the people who go about clamoring for the demise of Madigan from positions of authority will find their hostile views rather irrelevant. About as much as those who wanted to believe that Preckwinkle was doomed because of the “pop tax.”

Remember that? The penny-per-ounce fee that was charged every time you bought a bottle of a sweetened drink (about $0.64 added to the price of a two-liter bottle of pop).

People were supposedly so offended by the charge (which used to add about 21 cents to the cost of whenever I picked up a can of Coca-Cola) that they were going to vote Preckwinkle out of her post as Cook County Board president.

Actually, it was the lobbyists for the carbonated beverage industry who were p.o.’ed about the tax, and it was their lobbying effort that ultimately swayed the county board to repeal the tax despite Preckwinkle’s continued support of the need for the revenues it generated.

MADIGAN: 3rd decade as Dem chair?

BUT THAT DIDN’T happen. Preckwinkle won her re-nomination in the March primary and doesn’t even have a Republican opponent come the Nov. 6 general election. She enhanced her political power on Wednesday when the Cook County committeemen convened and picked her the party chairman.

She’s now the first woman and first black person to ever hold the position and can now put her name in the same category as Richard J. Daley – who himself was the county Democratic chairman who used that position to make himself all-powerful.

Rather than just another “joe schmo” mayor.

Not that I expect Preckwinkle to become the next Daley who single-handedly picks the candidate who beats up on Donald J. Trump come the 2020 presidential election.

FIORETTI: Reduced to defending Harvey

BUT SHE’S NOWHERE near the level of political death that her partisan detractors wanted to believe. Although if she had faced a more credible opponent than Robert Fioretti in the Democratic primary, things might have been different.

Not that Fioretti hasn’t been in the news in recent days. He’s the attorney defending suburban Harvey – the community whose share of state revenues were being garnished by the Comptroller’s office for failing to make payments toward the pension benefits they’re supposed to provide to retired police officers and firefighters.

Not exactly a high-minded cause, to be sure.

Although at least Preckwinkle had a couple of challengers for the party chairman post. Which is much more than the opposition Madigan will face when the state central committee meets on Monday in Springfield.

ALL THE PEOPLE who privately rant and rage about Madigan being all-too-powerful don’t have the nerve to come forth and challenge him. He’s been state Democratic chairman for 20 years and is likely to continue that reign (along with being Illinois House speaker) for the time being.

RAUNER: Covering up own unpopularity?

Not even a token challenger, like Preckwinkle had for county board president in the primary earlier this year.

Republicans may want to believe the nonsense-talk that Gov. Bruce Rauner is going to spew for the next few months that Madigan is all-evil and everything that is wrong with electoral politics. But I’d have to say that we make a mistake if we presume that he speaks for the majority of Illinoisans – just the people who are so desperate for an Election Day victory that they’ll keep engaging in the same “Dump Madigan” rhetoric that hasn’t succeeded for the last few election cycles.

For the reality may well be that many of us have real lives to live and know better than to get wrapped up in partisan political trash talk.

  -30-

EXTRA: Oops! I almost skipped casting my vote for Toni Preckwinkle

I went to an Early Voting Center on Monday to cast my ballot for the upcoming March 20 primaries and I almost made a gaffe.

When I thought I had completed my ballot, I was informed that I managed to skip over one post – I somehow had left the position of Cook County Board president blank!

I WENT BACK and filled in the blank, making it for the record that I support the re-election of Toni Preckwinkle to a third term in the position. Even though her support of the pop tax last year was supposedly going to be the issue of outrage that would cause Chicago and the inner suburbs to revolt against her.

Remember all that?!?

People were so worked up over the sweetened beverage tax that they were making significantly-inconvenient trips to Lake County (either the Illinois or Indiana versions) to buy their cases of pop and avoid paying the penny per ounce tax rate.

Perhaps it’s because the gubernatorial primaries of both major political parties have caused enough scandal and outrage that people are focusing their attention on those issues.

MAYBE THE OUTRAGE of the electorate is more focused these days on the re-election chances of Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios and trying to dump the political insider in favor of a governmental amateur. Or maybe it’s just because Preckwinkle’s opponent, former Chicago alderman Robert Fioretti, is one step above a fringe candidate like gubernatorial dreamer Robert Marshall.

But when was the last time you heard anyone rant or rage about the pop tax; except for maybe the political crackpot-types who are determined to complain about something no matter what happens.

Is our political attention-span that limited? Most likely!

  -30-

Feds still tipped off to DACA beneficiary, despite sanctuary policy

Christian Gomez Garcia spent a couple of days in jail this week, awaiting the possibility of deportation from the United States even though he’s one of the individuals under federal policy who supposedly is protected from such a fate.

Gomez is one of the people who registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program so that he could live openly in this country even though his mother brought him here at age 6 without getting valid visas for herself or her son.

TECHNICALLY, HE’S AMONG the ranks of the undocumented in this country – an illegal alien in federal bureaucratic-speak that the ideologues like to use because it dehumanizes the individuals they wish to deport.

Technically, his fate is one that isn’t supposed to happen. It was a screw-up by law enforcement, although the Chicago Tribune reported that his DACA protections may have lapsed. Which is why Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reviewed his case before releasing him from the county jail in Kenosha, Wis., where they house some immigration cases while they’re pending prior to deportation.

But I’m sure Gomez isn’t going to feel all that relieved. He’s going to know that the slightest little slip-up will cause the bureaucrats to throw his life out of whack – and that the ideologue-inclined of our society won’t feel the least bit of sympathy.

Gomez is 29, and he’s supporting his mother, Luz Maria Garcia, who left their native Mexico to get away from instances of domestic abuse. He came to the attention of law enforcement for an incident in December. He drove his car through a stop sign, and was issued a ticket.

HE HAD HIS day in court on Monday, making his appearance at the courthouse in suburban Skokie. All routine; something I’m sure all of us have gone through at some point in life.

But when Gomez tried leaving the Skokie courthouse, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he found ICE agents waiting for him in the lobby. It seems someone notified federal officials that a person with uncertain immigration status was in court that day, and they should come to pick him up.

Even though the whole point of the DACA program is that those young people with no serious criminal records aren’t supposed to have to fear such hassle from law enforcement. DACA registration gives them the work permits provided they continue progress through the naturalization process toward eventual U.S. citizenship.

What has Latino activist-types all worked up is that this happened in a Cook County government facility. If it turns out to have been a sheriff’s deputy or some other county official who picked up the phone to call the feds, then someone is in violation of Coo County’s own sanctuary policy.

THAT’S THE POLICY that says county officials don’t assist federal immigration officials by providing such information about their jail inmates. It means that appearing in court for a traffic ticket should have been a circumstance in which Gomez felt secure.

Now I’m sure some people are going to argue that the inconvenience to Gomez wasn’t that big a deal. After all, the federal government wound up admitting their error and releasing him on Thursday.

Although it also means that he came to the attention of immigration officials, and this is exactly the kind of bureaucratic screwup that has the ability to come back and bite one on their nalgas. Or their derriere, if you prefer more effete language!

Who’s to say that having drawn this kind of attention will cause federal officials to tune their antennae more intensely to Gomez’ presence, looking for anything they could construe as a screw-up so they can justify their actions of this week?

BESIDES, I ALSO wonder how many of the rest of us would appreciate a screw-up that resulted in having to spend even a single day in a county jail. Particularly since the offense that initiated this whole incident was a blown “stop” sign.

The DACA policy, the one-and-the-same that President Donald Trump would like to see done away with, or at least extort other ideologue benefits in exchange for keeping it, was supposed to eliminate the chance of deportation being the end result for such petty offenses by people who are far from criminals.

Except in the mindset of those ideologues who want to believe that existing in this society without being exactly like their narrow-minded selves is a crime in-and-of itself.

For so long as we allow the immigration debate to be dictated by the idiotic thoughts of the most bigoted of our society, we’re going to continue to have more silly incidents like these clogging up our justice system.

  -30-

EXTRA: Pop tax falls flat, while judicial temperaments soar sky high

Friday was the day that the Cook County tax on sweetened beverages (a.k.a., the pop tax) came to an end. With it being a new fiscal year for county government, a new budget takes over the finances.

Cost declines 21 cents

And this is the budget that made some $200 million in spending cuts to replace the revenues that were expected to be raised during Fiscal 2018 through pop sales.

A GREAT MANY people are trying to pass off the county’s action to rescind the tax as some heroic measure by which the Cook County Board listened to the electorate and took away that tax of 1 penny per ounce.

Which usually boosted the price of one of those plastic pop bottles by about 21 cents.

But there are those who are upset by the fact that the entities that comprise Cook County government got their spending cut. One of those is Chief Judge Timothy Evans (remember back when he was supposed to be Harold Washington’s successor, but wound up losing to Richard M. Daley?)

Evans is suing Cook County government, and in fact a hearing was held Friday on that lawsuit – although Friday’s hearing which will resume Tuesday was on the merits of bringing in a judge from outside of Cook County to preside over the case.

EVANS CONTENDS THE Cook County Board has no legal authority to cut employees from the courts payroll. He wants some 100 people restored to his payroll, and the county to find somewhere else to cut the $26 million it contemplated whacking from his portion of the county budget.

EVANS: Suing his own home county

Although county officials argue that the cuts they made to balance out the Cook County budget for Fiscal 2018 does not impact any front-line employees of the state’s attorney or public defender’s offices.

This is likely to be an ongoing argument. So for any of you who thought that the issue was resolved by reducing the cost of a bottle of pop back to previous tax levels, you appear seriously misguided.

And for what it’s worth, I’ve heard from some potential voters who say they admire county board President Toni Preckwinkle for at least trying to find a solution that didn’t involve cuts in government services.

PRECKWINKLE: She tried!

I DON’T KNOW exactly how this will all be resolved in the end – other than to say there are bound to be a few individuals for whom essential services wind up being whacked at in the name of balanced budgeting.

Just something to think about when you get all excited about saving 21 cents on a pop bottle – or 64 cents on those two-liter jugs some people like to buy!

  -30-

Obama does civic duty, just like the masses who get called upon for jury

I’m sure the ideologues amongst us who want to believe that Barack Obama exists on some sort of alien plane of existence will hate this characterization, but now the former president has something in common with many of us Cook County residents.

Obama went from Oval Office ...

He had to blow a few hours of his day at a courthouse (in his case, the Daley Center downtown) on the off-chance he would actually be needed to serve on a jury.

THE REPORTS I read indicate he showed up at about 10:15 a.m., and was released from duty by the county by mid-day.

He got to watch that video of a youthful Lester Holt talking about the great civic duty one performs when they’re asked to be one of a dozen individuals who decide the guilt or innocence of someone caught up in the court system.

Just like I have done three times in my life. Like Obama, I wound up not being picked – and in two of the cases didn’t even come close to being considered. Almost as if it was a waste of my day.

Except that it will be argued the need for a large pool of individuals is essential to come up with enough acceptable people to have enough juries. In short, it’s not a process that can be run with efficiency in mind. Somebody’s time has to be wasted!

IT SHOULDN’T BE a surprise that Obama wasn’t picked, and not just because I’m sure many attorneys arguing a case in court want the attention focused on the merits of their legal arguments – and not on the fact that one of the jurors is (at the very least) a former law school instructor who probably knows more about legal issues and public policy than they do.

Not that I’ve ever been rejected for jury service because I was too knowledgable. In fact, two of my times I received the call, my stint ended as abruptly as Obama’s service.

I remember being back outside the Criminal Courts building at about 12:15 p.m.. waiting for a bus that would take me to the el platform a few blocks north that rode me back into the heart of the city – then back home for the day.

,,, to jury room of Daley Center

In my case, I was part of a group that was supposed to be considered for a jury in a criminal case – only for the defendant to suddenly decide to accept a plea agreement.

SINCE THERE WAS no trial, there were no need for jurors. Which means the sheriff’s deputies wound up having to sort out the paperwork so we could all be given our checks for just over $17 each to compensate us for our service.

Which pretty much was enough money to cover the cost of my el and bus fares I encountered to get out to the courthouse that one-time Mayor Anton Cermak had constructed in the neighborhood because it was where he came from – he liked the idea of all his supporters being able to get jobs near home.

Of course, I might be more mocking of Obama’s two hours of jury service that resulted in him not being picked if not for another experience I once had at the county courthouse in Maywood.

On that particular day, there were three cases scheduled to come up for trial (all civil), only for all three to be settled out-of-court at the last minute. Meaning, once again, no jurors needed. We all got to go home by about 1 p.m.

WHICH I REMEMBER had all of us relieved. Because no matter how much it is a civic responsibility, no one wants to have to give up several weeks of their lives to sit through a criminal trial – which, based on my experience covering criminal courts cases as a reporter-type person, isn’t unheard of.

So I’ve had my own Obama-like experience with jury service – having to sit in isolated rooms with vending machines providing overpriced sustenance. Although I understand Obama was allowed to sit off by himself in a judge’s private office so he could continue to get some work done.

A touch of nature outside a place that focuses on humanity's ugliness

The version of me that once actually had to submit to interrogation from prosecutors and defense attorneys picking a jury wouldn’t have been as sympathetic. I remember being at the Criminal Courts building until about 8:30 p.m. before I was formally rejected to serve in the case against a man facing attempted murder charges of a Korean grocer he was accused of trying to rob.

In my case, I had just been laid off from a job a couple of days before, and I remember seeing the looks of dismay on the attorneys’ faces when I was able to say I was unemployed. Almost as though they could pull out their rubber stamp of “rejection” and plop it on my forehead. Which sent me packing just moments later.

  -30-

Cook County ‘pop tax’ upsets political structure’s sense of who matters

If you think about it, it’s really not surprising to learn that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, doesn’t think much of the penny-per-ounce pop tax being charged by Cook County government.

Is Preckwinkle's 'pop tax' really a threat ...

Republican political operatives are gloating at the very notion that Madigan, who usually is supportive of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, is trying to concoct measures by which the pop tax would go away.

WHETHER THAT MEANS Madigan putting the strong-arm tactics to certain members of the Cook County Board to get them to shift their support from the tax that, in part, is supposed to help the county cover the cost of maintaining its hospitals and health care programs.

Or by having the General Assembly pass a law that would supersede the county’s ability to impose such a tax.

It could be either tactic. We’ll have to wait and see by which means Madigan attempts to undermine the county’s ability to use its taxing authority to raise money for itself.

In one sense, it could be perceived as the state meddling in county government business. But the reality is that all the layers of government do wind up getting intertwined. And other officials are now deciding to get involved in the pop tax because they’re fearful voters determined to vote “no” on the tax will wind up voting “no” on everything and anything.

IT WAS KIND of like a few years ago when then-county board President Todd Stroger tried balancing out the Cook County government budget with a boost in the county’s share of the sales tax.

... really a threat to Madigan majority?

Which combined with the state tax and any local taxes charged by municipalities. As many critics were quick to point out, the county’s increase drove the whole sales tax within the Chicago city limits to just over 10 percent.

Since the local political perception is that Chicago city government is most important and that Madigan’s long-time influence puts state government at a next rung, it means that the county had to assume a position of lesser importance.

Its sales tax hike had to go in order to get the overall sales tax in Chicago below 10 percent.

JUST AS NOW Madigan is fearing that his rank-and-file legislators in suburban Cook County might have their lives complicated when they run for re-election next year, IF the pop tax remains in place.

How quickly would Wrath of Rahm reign down on Toni?

So Cook County government, as an entity, may have to sacrifice its tax, because the carbonated beverages lobby (I refuse to use the label “Big Soda,” it just sounds so lame) doesn’t like the idea of anyone else making money off their products. People are just as offended by the 7-cent-per-plastic bag at stores in Chicago, yet nobody's telling the city they have to drop it!

I have to admit the pop lobbying effort appears more successful than that of the healthcare advocates, including former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who failed to take on pop in his own city by restricting the sale of those 32-ounce cups of pop – which really are vulgar is you think seriously about such a portion.

My own thought is that, while I agree with the premise of the tax and think that trying to benefit a public health goal is noble, seeing vending machines reading “kidney failure” and “Type 2 Diabetes” is just a bit too phony – and just as lame as the “Big Soda” label.

SO NOW MADIGAN is going to get involved, for his usual reason – self-preservation. There have been many noble concepts throughout the years that have died political deaths because Madigan felt his Illinois House leadership would be threatened by such efforts. Although there is some legitimacy to the converse position -- you can't accomplish anything if you lose the prior election.

How phony Illinois GOP rhetoric can be at times

Of course, I found it somewhat ridiculous to read the Republican response Friday to this issue – they want us to believe that any Democrat who NOW votes against the pop tax is merely being “Madigan cronies simply following the leader.”

Not that I ever expect Democrats (or any Chicago interests) to be worthy in the minds of the Illinois Republican Party. It’s usually best to ignore the perception of GOPers who, at times, seem embarrassed to be from the “Land of Lincoln.”

All I know is that it is just as likely that if this tax does die a month or so from now and does result in county funding cuts for health care services, I fully expect many of those same people will shift their ire to the health care cuts! Some people are just determined to complain – no matter what the issue.

  -30-

For way Dems backed J.B., we might as well have been at Bismarck Hotel of old

We’re several years into the 21^st Century and we’d like to think we’re urbane and sophisticated. Yet when it comes to electoral politics, the spirit of the smoke-filled room and political party hacks gathering together to tell us what is for our own good come Election Day still prevails.

PRITZKER: The officially-preferred Dem gov hopeful

For the Cook County Democratic Party, the heart and muscle of Democratic organizations in dominating Illinois, decided Friday amongst themselves that the gubernatorial campaign of J.B. Pritzker is the officially-preferred choice come the March 20, 2018 primary.

FORGET CHRIS KENNEDY and his family aura, or the idealism of Ameya Pawar or Daniel Biss, or the political delusions any of the other gubernatorial dreamers may have.

The party will put its money, so to speak, on the member of the Pritzker family whose wealth originates with the Hyatt Hotels chain, betting he is the most likely to have a chance to defeat Gov. Bruce Rauner’s dreams of re-election come the Election Day on Nov. 6.

Actually, that phrase about “put its money” is a misnomer, since the party hacks largely see the advantage of a Pritzker campaign is that he has a large private fortune and has expressed a willingness to make many large donations to himself in order to pay the costs of a political campaign.

Political spirit of the one-time Bismarck Hotel ...

Democratic Party organizations won't have to make a priority of trying to raise money for a governor's race where they will be outspent overwhelmingly by Rauner's own personal fortune.

DEMOCRATIC REGULARS SEE that as absolutely essential to compete with the significant private wealth that Rauner is prepared to spend to try to get himself re-elected, and also to alter the General Assembly composition in ways to create political allies for himself.

Because it has been a hostile Legislature run by urban Democratic Party interests that has been the buffer between the public interests and the many anti-union fantasies that Rauner repeatedly tries to portray as “reform.”

Cook County Democrats gathered Friday at the Erie Café restaurant (Italian food, but the prime rib looks scrumptious) to come to their decision to officially slate Pritzker’s campaign over all others for governor.

... carries over to a Near North restaurant

But the spirit may well have been that of the one-time Bismarck Hotel where politicos used to merely have to walk across the street from City Hall to gather in those aforementioned smoke-filled rooms to decide which candidates were worthy of political support.

THAT ACTUALLY IS the key to comprehending what the value of the party’s slate truly is.

It means the party regulars are now bound to back Pritzker for governor. They’re bound to have their campaign workers out on the streets trying to stir up the vote for J.B.

If by chance they are absolutely appalled at the thought of a Pritzker as governor, they’re required to keep their mouths shut about it. They can’t go off and offer support for anybody else – unless they want to be viewed as renegades.

Although Pritzker’s preferred status by the party isn’t really surprising – he did have a sister, Penny, who served as Commerce Secretary under President Barack Obama. The family isn’t new to electoral politics.

AS FOR WHAT the other gubernatorial candidates wanted was for the party to slate no one. Which would have given the individual party regulars the ability to make up their own minds and allow their campaign workers to push for votes for whomever they truly supported.

Now, J.B. has something of a political army willing to do the legwork to try to gain him more political support beyond what he hopes to buy during the election cycle.

BAULER: Some sentiments never change

Dems may think this is a strength, but it also is potentially the Pritzker weakness – one that Biss already is trying to play off of. He says that a “Gov. Pritzker” would be no different than a “Gov. Rauner,” just another rich guy who won’t have the public interest in mind.

So while we might be nearly two full decades into the current century, there’s just enough of the old sentiment remaining that the idea of letting political people pick which pol they prefer may just be too modern a concept and the decades-old ideal of one-time alderman/saloon-keeper Mathias “Paddy” Bauler (“Chicago ain’t ready for reform”) still applies.

 -30-

Cook: Somebody must pay pop tax

Cook County Board officials estimate that some $17 million in revenue was lost during the month of July – which is when the courts considered legal actions that challenged the legitimacy of the penny-per-ounce tax on pop and other sweetened beverages.
 

Must be vintage if bottle only a dime

So now that the courts have ruled that the pop tax has legal legitimacy, county officials are talking about forcing someone to cough up the amount of cash they were denied during July.

SPECIFICALLY, THE COUNTY has filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Retail Merchants Association – one of the groups that was supportive of the effort by anti-tax activists to challenge the legitimacy of a pop tax.

The one that was supposed to raise some $67.5 million through the rest of 2017, and another $200 million for the 2018 fiscal year that begins Dec. 1.

Money they insist is needed by the county if its budget is to come out balanced in the end.

So losing a month’s worth of revenue is a significant loss to the county, so much so that it wants to file the legal action that many see as purely punitive towards any group that would dare speak out against the county.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T expect the county ever will get any money from this lawsuit of theirs. I think it is more of an intimidation tactic.

As in when one considers that when a Cook County judge last week handed down the ruling that upheld the pop tax’ legitimacy, the retail merchants association made a point of saying it was “weighing our legal options,” then earlier this week filed their own appeal of Judge Daniel Kubasiak’s ruling.

One that was meant to get an appeals court to strike down the pop tax once again.

 

PRECKWINKLE: Willing to fight for pop tax

I suspect that when their appeals disappear, the county’s lawsuit against the association will also wither away.

SUCH TACTICS MAY be strong-arm tactics that border on intimidation – although to tell you the truth, it’s not like business-oriented groups such as the association aren’t capable of deploying their own collection of goons to try to intimidate government entities into going along with their demands.

But then again, I’m also waiting to see what becomes of the 300 or so county employees who were laid off from their jobs last month due to the financial shortfall caused by temporarily losing the county pop tax.

County officials weren’t exactly quick to say when those people would be restored to the payroll – which as far as I’m concerned is a sleazier move than any tax hike being imposed on people who just feel compelled to have their dose of a carbonated beverage as part of their daily sugar intake.

Perhaps this particular tax just doesn’t offend me much because it is for a product that we choose to enjoy, or can decide to do without. And realize that sentence was just written by someone who enjoys an occasional Coca-Cola. Although I also have been making my own effort during the past year to reduce the amount of pop I consume.

WE COULD CONTINUE to engage in a back-and-forth battle over the pop tax. Or maybe we could move on to issues of true significance instead of fighting over the resulting price increase.

Pop tax couldn't wind up here, could it?

Because the reality is that nothing costs the same as it used to. Everything is more expensive these days. Remember it wasn't long ago that gasoline cost less than $1 per gallon?!?

Yes, the idea of having to pay an extra 20 cents for that single-serve bottle of pop ($1.89 at a Walgreens, the last time I bought one) kind of stinks. It makes me think of when I was a young child some 45 years ago having to accompany my mother to a neighborhood laundromat and being allowed to buy myself a pop from the vending machine for about 20 cents.

As in the total price – not just the tax added on! I find that price hike much more offensive.

  -30-

North vs. South sides not just an excuse for baseball brawl; weather differs too

It’s just more evidence of how physically huge the Chicago metropolitan area is – we don’t even get the same weather!

Vacuums, fans put to work to dry out No. Chgo.

I was reminded of that while reading the news coverage of the massive rainstorms that hit the Chicago area and caused severe flooding for some people. In some cases, the floodwaters continued to rise even after the heavy rain quit falling.

BASEMENTS FLOODED. CARS seen floating down the streets. There is one report of an entire public park that found itself completely under water overnight, causing severe problems for everybody who happens to live nearby.

This is one of those major storms that will be remembered for years to come – even though to the best of my knowledge there were no fatalities as a result of the inclement weather.

Yet all of this is true only if you happen to live in the northern part of the metropolitan area. Specifically, the north suburban part of the Chicago area. That’s where the heavy water fell. That is where problems arose. That is where Gov. Bruce Rauner joined state and Lake County officials on Friday to survey the damage due to inclement weather, then declare Kane, Lake and McHenry counties to be state disaster areas.

Those of us who lived in the city proper saw some rain, but none of the horror stories of flooded basements or other severe property damage.

FOR THOSE PEOPLE in the southern part of the county of Cook? Yeah, it rained overnight. Even a bit during the day. But by that point, the rain had dwindled down to a drizzle.

I’m not about to call those people living up north “sissies” who can’t handle a little water. But down around the parts of Chicago and suburbs that affectionately refer to themselves as the “Sout’ Side,” the Chicago Tribune headlines such as, Flooding of this magnitude has not been seen before seems like such an exaggeration.

I know in my own case on Wednesday, I happened to be downstairs in a basement of my father’s home when I happened to notice some water trickling into the basement.

Gov. Rauner surveyed Gurnee flooding, ...

When I went outside to check, I found that an outside drain had been clogged with leaves – meaning that the water had no other place to go but inside.

THE MOMENT I reached into the drain and pulled the leaves out, all the water immediately got sucked down the drain. It quit going into the house. End of problem, although my father then pulled out his handy “shop vac” and used it to suck up the dribble of water that had got inside.

Basically, the mess was cleaned up even before the rain stopped falling. And yes, I helped my father maintain a watch over the basement and drain to ensure it didn’t get clogged again.

It didn’t.

No more floodwater in that basement. At least for this storm. Although I don’t doubt there will be a future storm that will direct its wrath at the southern part of metro Chicago – and it will be all those northernmost residents who will claim there wasn’t anything worth noting in that day’s “storms.”

THIS PHENOMENON ISN’T unusual. The six counties that officially comprise the Chicago area truly are big enough that one end of the area can have totally different weather than another.

This week’s storms (severe in one part while non-existent in another) reminded me of a long-ago rainfall – an incident back in 1987 when I was a beginning reporter-type person in suburban Chicago Heights. I did a story about that day’s particular flooding up north where the rainfall didn’t extend to anywhere south of 55^th Street.

... while Labrapoodle Carmelo sees nicer weather in his part of Cook Co.

As one local firefighter put it when I questioned him about the lack of emergencies his department had to respond to that day, he quipped of the bad weather elsewhere, “We don’t allow that sort of thing in Camelot.”

Probably the only time anybody’s used the reference to King Arthur’s court to describe the South Side. Yet I’m sure there are some water-soaked people living up north these days who would view the dry turf down south these days as a bit of paradise.

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‘Pop tax’ on hold, yet people still panic

I couldn’t help but be amused when I was at a Jewel-Osco supermarket on Saturday, and not because of Jo-Jo the mascot or the other costumed characters who were present.
 

Waiting to see if tax takes effect July 13

But I happened to be present because I wanted to buy a container of lemonade, which is among the beverages that qualify to be taxed under Cook County’s new sweetened beverage tax.

THE PRICE TAG indicated that the lemonade was on sale, but also that the dollar amount on the tag did not reflect the additional $0.01 per ounce that is being charged to raise money for county government to fulfill its financial obligations.

One of those saying that the additional tax would be “added at checkout.”

Of course, nothing was added when I made my purchase on Saturday, but only because of the circuit judge who issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the new tax from taking effect on Saturday.

So no more tax monies will be collected, at least through July 12, when a court hearing is scheduled to hear legal arguments on the merits of the injunction. A permanent ban on the tax could be issued at that time.

THE POP TAX has become one of those things that gets people worked up. How dare the government think they can do anything to boost the price of a bottle of pop or whatever other sweetened beverage (such as my lemonade) that we might want to buy?!?

The activists are trying to make this into some sort of moral crusade. They have turned to the courts to try to prevent the Cook County Board from imposing the pop tax it approved late last year, with provisions that it take effect as of July 1.

Which is why the retailers such as Jewel made a point of warning people about the potential charge. My guess is they don’t want any customer to claim they were somehow tricked into paying more money for their beverages.

PRECKWINKLE: Cook needs pop tax monies

Just like I have heard some complain about the fee that retailers in Chicago now charge if one chooses to ask for a plastic bag to store their purchases in when they leave the store. It’s only $0.07 per bag, but I’m sure some people are going to argue about the “principle” of the issue.

ALTHOUGH IT’S NOT just city-based retailers addressing the issue. It seems that some of the larger supermarket chains that operate just across the Illinois/Indiana state line are already publishing advertising inserts advising people they ought to make a trip to their Hoosier-based stores so as to avoid paying the Cook County tax.

Some activists are trying to use those inserts as evidence of how Chicago-area businesses will lose out because of the tax – those businesses just outside of Cook County will prey on Chicago customers like leeches to suck up their money while depriving our own businesses of revenue.

I’ve heard figures as high as “40 percent” being tossed out – as in that’s how much pop sales could decline in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs. That could be a financial blow.

Except that I wonder how many people are going to want to make a lengthy drive to buy cheap pop. There may be those people who live near the border areas who will make the trip to the “next town over” to save a little money.

THEN AGAIN, THEY’RE probably the same people who make a point of making the same trip to get cheaper gasoline for their car or will feel the need to head out to the Land of Hoosiers for a dose of firecrackers and other explosives so as to terrorize the neighborhood little ol’ ladies and pets with the “rockets’ red glare” come Tuesday and Independence Day.

So we may have some people freaking out about the price of pop going up, while others will go out of their way to show just how minimal the cost increase will be. While we spend the next week-and-a-half in a lull, waiting to see whether the county’s pop tax will be permitted to exist.

Although personally, a part of me wonders if pop is something along the lines of cigarettes – another product that officials try to tax so as to raise revenue while also possibly persuading people to lessen their consumption.

Which might be for the best. Because personally, while I enjoy a Coca-Cola from time to time, I find that too much of it gives me gas.

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