The New Math

Q. What do you do when you're a county commissioner, and you want to raise taxes by 30%?

A. You tell the people you're only raising them 2%.

"Cook County is a destination place," said Murphy. "We have great conventions and conferences here. The sales tax is going up 2 ¾ percent. That's not a back-breaking increase."

Naturally, the only people against this insignificant increase are the ones it's going to affect. Fearing that people may look for other places to shop, retailers are saying the county should look elsewhere for money. County Board President Todd Stroger seems open to compromise.

"If they support some other revenue increase, then, that could help fill the gap. But maybe we still would need a sales tax, but as stated maybe not two percent, maybe 2.5 percent. We need to make sure we keep the system going."

Stroger has truly embraced the philosophy of 'less is more'. I suspect that Gov has great plans for him.