Decline and fall: Rahm's water and sewer tax to attempt to bail out pensions passes key vote

Abandoned South
Side home

Chicago's overtaxed citizens are facing another slap in the face as the City Council's finance committee OKed a 30 percent hike in the water and sewer tax as another way to rescue, or try to rescue, the nearly $18 billion shortfall in the municipal employee pension fund. Passage by the entire City Council will be a formality, as this pathetic legislative body has been nothing but a rubber-stamp collective for decades.

Laundromat owners oppose the tax hike, they say their increased costs may force some laundromats to close, and of course its poor people, not the rich, who use these establishments.

Even supporters of the tax hike admit that more revenue will be needed to bail out the pension fund.

And if middle class residents continue their exodus from Chicago there will be fewer water bills paid.

The spend-then-tax model is transforming Chicago into the next Detroit.

Last year Chicago stuck it to its residents by enacting the largest property tax hike in its history in an attempt to save the police and firefighter pension funds.