With an expected confrontation with Chicago Budget deficit Nearly $1 billion next year, Mayor Brandon Johnson unveiled his project Suggested Budget 2025. The plan doesn't just back down from progressives Campaign pledge Not raising property taxes but also including a sharp increase in taxes on alcohol.
Independent liquor stores will Bear the brunt From Johnson's tax on alcoholic beverages. These small businesses are primarily immigrant-owned and located in minority neighborhoods in the Windy City. Meanwhile, Chicago continues to indulge in a decades-long spending spree that prioritizes everything from teacher pensions and art classes to luxury government office renovations.
Chicago's financial woes are no secret at this point, and the city's mayor is worth $17.3 billion Proposed budget It still includes a deficit of $982 million. Johnson sought to plug the gap with a now-failed $300 million property tax increase, along with “other revenue improvements” (a government euphemism for “we raise your taxes”). Included in a dizzying array of budget figures are a Proposed decree To raise some taxes on alcohol by 34 percent.
Taxing alcohol has proven to be a popular idea among politicians, because it often receives less scrutiny than increasing income or property taxes. Therefore, it can act as a kind of Backdoor Revenue generator – but it also is Reactionary in naturesince it largely affects low-income residents who are less able to absorb the rise.
But the most serious threat posed by Chicago's planned alcohol tax escalation is the impact it could have on the city's small businesses, including craft distilleries and neighborhood liquor stores. Distilled Spirits Council of the United States Expected That tax could result in a $25 million loss in retail sales and cost at least 300 Chicagoans their jobs.
As in many large cities, liquor stores are often found in Chicago neighborhoods Owned By Arab and South Asian immigrants and usually operates in neighborhoods inhabited by minorities. It is these small businesses that are most threatened by Johnson's alcohol tax increase.
It's not just a matter of dollars and cents. Many of these companies are falls On the south side of Chicago, which borders Indiana. This poses a particular problem considering that it is a Hoosier state Indirect tax For distilled spirits it costs up to $2.68 per gallon. Chicago's current rate – when combined with Illinois' liquor tax – is actually Over $13 per gallon.
“It is cheaper for Illinois retailers (such as neighborhood liquor stores) to buy from retail stores in Indiana than to buy wholesale in Illinois,” Sean O'Leary, former chief legal counsel for the Illinois Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, wrote on his website. “. Irish Liquor Lawyer Blog. “These companies are presented with many bad choices: they cheat and buy into retail stores in Indiana so they can make a profit, follow the rules and not be able to compete in the market, or go out of business.”
The mayor's alcohol tax would likely be more defensible if revenues were used strictly to fund vital government services, but the proposed 2025 budget still allocates more than that. 72 million dollars To fund the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, which distributes grants to local artists and funds the Chicago Film Office's efforts to get more films and television shows filmed in the city (and boasts an 80-person workforce totaling about $8 million in personnel costs).
The proposed budget also includes about $4 million in funding for Super Audio.”Graffiti magnifiers“A team of more than 30 government employees uses “weapons” like a “baking soda truck” and a chemical sprayer “filled with citrus oil” to wipe off paint on the walls. In a lesson for the right hand – a group that doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, the Department Cultural and special events distributing grants for the Design Museum of Chicago, which hosted classes teaching Chicagoans how to draw graffiti—graffiti that was supposed to be “blown up” by the Graffiti Squad.
Johnson is No skinlint same. Less than a year after he took office, a Freedom of Information Act request from a local news station revealed a sum of at least a dollar8000 trips Which took the mayor and his gang to Los Angeles, which included two additional days in Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards. Before the recent budget drama, he was also mayor I tried to press Chicago Public Schools leadership pushed for a risky, high-interest $300 million loan to fund teacher pensions — a move rejected by even fellow progressives, as evidenced by resignation of the city's entire Board of Education in protest (all of whom were originally selected by Johnson himself).
Recently, the latest local news investigation They uncovered invoices totaling more than $80,000 to renovate an office at the Chicago Cultural Center where the city's mayor's wife plans to host visiting dignitaries. The furniture bill alone was $43,000, and one employee even received a $4,600 desk, along with purchasing a $2,200 “high-back executive chair” for the city’s First Lady.
On Thursday, the Chicago City Council dealt the mayor a devastating blow when he decided unacceptable Proposed $300 million property tax increase on 50-0 vote. Earlier in the week, Johnson told reporters that he was “never serious” about raising the property tax, but suggested it was “just a shock to the council” to propose “serious alternatives to raising revenue,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The mayor's gambit on an alcohol tax is still on, and if approved, ordinary Chicagoans — including neighborhood liquor store owners — will be the ones to pay the price.
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