WurfWhile

Recently thwarted from raising taxes by the state’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader, DuPage County tax and spend Republicans, who control every seat on the DuPage County Board, are now considering a major expansion of government, through “Home Rule,” to gain the authority to tax DuPage residents more than they are currently permitted to do. Today’s Daily Herald quotes County Board Chair Robert Schillerstrom as saying, “It’s one of those things that the board recognizes we need to at least think about and look at as a potential option.” The paper also points to members Pam Rion, Jim Zay and Patrick O’Shea as considering the Home Rule option.

I am publicly against Home Rule for DuPage and none of my past concerns are in any way allayed by the DuPage County Board’s actions since 2004 (including their failing to address the well-known, easily foreseeable major budget shortfall this year that caused county services to face the funding crisis we now have). I am also against the short-sighted effort to use a ‘vanishing’ cigarette tax to fund crucial county health and social welfare services (it is ‘vanishing’ because even its proponents note the tax will decrease cigarette consumption - thus lowering the tax base (and tax collection) - and that isn’t even taking into account the effect of recent smoke-free municipal ordinances popping up all over DuPage).

My anti-smoking tax stance is not about being pro-smoking (I’m not); it is about seriously funding our social service and social welfare programs. In this regard, DuPage United deserves a special mention for recently arguing for a real funding solution too. The Naperville Sun quoted John Hazard of DuPage United’s Steering Committee as saying that the county budget cuts were “cruel” and “unnecessary” and the group itself has asked the county to use 5% of cash reserves to restore funds cut from Access DuPage, which arranges for health care for the uninsured, and the county convalescent center.

It’s all about priorities. Right now the priority of the Republican DuPage County Board seems to be to increase our taxes. If they need to expand government power, using Home Rule, to do it, they probably will (if we let them). I’d like to think that this fiscal crisis will make the Board reconsider its spending priorities, including last year’s County Board salary increase that preceded this year’s extreme layoffs of personnel, but that hasn’t happened yet.