Marathon Pundit: The "new era" of Cook County government

Monday, March 24, 2008

The "new era" of Cook County government

This is the dawning of a new era!
Woke up and thought "This ain't exactly heaven"
"(Dawning Of) A New Era," The Specials, 1979.

Earlier this month, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to add one percent to the sales tax rate, giving suburbanites like myself one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation, while Chicagoans will be paying what is believed to be the highest, 10.25 percent. The new rates kick in on November 1.

Two years ago, the president of the Cook County Board, John Stroger, suffered a massive stroke. He was never seen in public again; he won a close primary election a week after the stroke. After an exhaustive search, Cook County Democrats chose Stroger's son, Todd, to take his father's place on the ballot. Republican Tony Peraica gave Stroger the younger a tough challenge, but a last minute push by prominent Dems put "Toddler" over the top. John Stroger died in January.

In a Sunday editorial calling for the repeal of the "Stroger tax," and the "repeal" of the nine pols who voted for it, the Chicago Tribune writes:

Stroger, too, will be up for re-election in 2010. He is a humiliation to many of the politicians who endorsed him in 2006. They can apply pressure most citizens can't. So when you encounter a Democratic pol—a member of Congress, a state or county official, an alderman—be sure to ask: Did you endorse Todd Stroger? How's that working for you?

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The Trib in the editorial calls Cook County government a "fetid swamp."

Well, how about Barack Obama and Dick Durbin:

As I've done before in other posts about the tax, here is what the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn wrote two years ago:

Obama's staff released a profoundly disheartening letter to voters this week in which Obama, joined by Sen. Dick Durbin, endorsed Cook County Board presidential candidate Todd Stroger.

The letter, which puffs lots of hot air into the saggy balloon of Stroger's legislative resume, refers to him as "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government."

Todd Stroger was a "strong voice" in Springfield, the letter says. He has "worked assiduously" for the poor as an alderman. Yet, of course, the record reveals that Stroger is an unimaginative legislative drone whose reform credentials are wholly imaginary--an unlikely trailblazer to a new era.