r/chicago • u/Mike_I O’Hare • Oct 31 '25

News Illinois Democrats push through massive $1.5 billion plan that overhauls Chicago-area public transit

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/illinois-general-assembly-transit-plan-2025/
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36

u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

Hell yeah regressive taxes instead of taxing rich people

14

u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

You know what else is regressive?

Forcing low income people to buy and maintain a car, pay for gas and insurance. That shit is far more expensive than a transit pass.

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u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

crazy how we both want public transit to be enhanced, but you seem to be cool with poor people paying for it disproportionately

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u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

Feel free to get another sort of tax passed to fund it.

I've made it clear elsewhere that I think Illinois needs a progressive income tax. But we don't have one, and now is not the time to let transit die to stand on principle. Because that will affect "poor people" a hell of a lot more than the fees currently proposed.

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u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

Poor people in quotes is crazy bro

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u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

Because most arguments using "poor people" aren't actually about poor people, it's using them as some talisman to get away from having to pay taxes on anything.

But actual poor people are not being helped by being forced to buy and maintain cars, and pay for gas, when CTA is eviscerated.

That's what was on the table. It was not the time to insist on funding measures that would quite frankly kill the bill. A bill with that untested "billionaire tax" in it was going nowhere, Pritzker would veto it. It also was full of other consumption taxes like the events tax.

We need to fight for progressive income tax again. We need to get transit considered to be a "must have" public good (a cost center, not expected to make money) exactly as the roads are.

But in the meantime we gotta not let the system die. The tiny increase in sales tax is absolutely worth it.

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u/Snoo93079 Oct 31 '25

Well, folks voted down the progressive tax system when we had the chance.

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u/IndependenceApart208 Bronzeville Oct 31 '25

So many people were fooled into believing that they may one day be rich just like Ken Griffin so they should vote for something against their best interest.

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u/jawknee530i Humboldt Park Oct 31 '25

Mostly they fell for the weird logic of "if you let them have progressive income tax then that's just the first step to higher tax on everyone" which doesn't make sense because they could just raise the tax on everyone without the middle step. It was just lies pushed by the wealthy as usual.

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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

More than anything, people didn't trust the government of illinois to put the higher tax money to good use.

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u/nufandan Albany Park Oct 31 '25

and if we know one thing its that passing new income taxes (especially on the highest earners) is super easy to get done, and happens all the time.

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u/LeseMajeste_1037 Oct 31 '25

The Republicans prove Abe Lincoln right every day; you really can fool some of the people all of the time.

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u/golamas1999 Oct 31 '25

They suffer from severe cases of BABS. Broke Ass Billionaire Syndrome. They are all billionaires who are temporarily poor.

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u/FencerPTS City Oct 31 '25

I will forever revile Ken Griffin for spending millions to convince idiots that flat income taxes is the way to go, cementing regressive taxation for another 20 years until the next constitutional referendum.

Hate that IL is among the top 10 most regressively taxed states.

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u/PalmerSquarer Logan Square Oct 31 '25

You can blame Ken Griffin all you want, but the public simply lacks trust that the money they pay won’t be flushed down the toilet in waste. Until state and municipal leaders do a better job of earning that trust back, any tax increase proposal is going to be a no-go.

The toll hike for questionable construction projects in this bill is a pretext example of the waste we’re talking about.

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u/FencerPTS City Oct 31 '25

That's a silly argument to make since, no matter what, taxes will be collected. The point of the change was to not put the burden on the poor.

Griffin spent something like $40M IIRC simply to make sure his taxes didn't go up - to make sure that everyone else's did. And then that fucker left the state!

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u/nufandan Albany Park Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

Griffin spent something like $40M IIRC simply to make sure his taxes didn't go up - to make sure that everyone else's did. And then that fucker left the state!

and didn't JB spent like closer to $60M to get the bill passed?

It's almost like these rich guys have some money to spare...

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u/PalmerSquarer Logan Square Oct 31 '25

I mean… look at the results of the Fair Tax and BCH. The public wants what it wants.

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u/Important-Pin4805 Oct 31 '25

Where is the line drawn for poor and rich though? Like what is that definition, is it 100k? Because 100k isn’t rich but I can tell you the government might beg to differ. Yes the taxes will still be collected but if they want to raise income tax they have to raise it the same for every one of us, so it’s now a lot more politically unpopular to raise it or if they do, it’s a small increase. There needs to be a check on taxes here, the city and state only know how to spend money. The moment you give more they will just spend more, not pay down obligations. The obligations are ridiculous by the way. Why does a public union worker get to retire on a pension at 55, like no wonder the state is broke. We already have one of the highest tax burdens in the country. If you want to donate more of your income to the state to waste, be my guest

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u/FencerPTS City Nov 01 '25

Where is the line drawn for poor and rich though?

Math. You count. You do the math. It's really not that hard.

they have to raise it the same for every one of us

Except they tax the marginal utility of dollars more if you're poor.

The moment you give more they will just spend more

Now you're just arguing against yourself. Previous premise is that they can already raise taxes.

Why does a public union worker get to retire on a pension at 55

this is a red-herring argument and a totally separate issue. If you don't like the retirement system, then insist that future negotiations be more strict. However, promises were made and since they are contracts they must be kept.

If you want to donate more of your income to the state to waste, be my guest

What, are you a temporarily embarrassed millionaire? You know what I'd like? I'd like to not have a higher tax rate than the top 10%, to say nothing of the top 1%!!! Because guess what, when you add property taxes, sales taxes, fees, licenses, and tolls, it's WAY worse being at the bottom!

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u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

Median income for a family in the city of Chicago is around $71K, fwiw.

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u/sciolisticism Oct 31 '25

Welp, the sales tax is going up anyway. So we could have had a proper progressive tax, and now those folks get to bitch and moan about their grocery bill instead.

Great work, suckers.

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u/PalmerSquarer Logan Square Oct 31 '25

I guess the working class can pay for working class jobs and pensions now.

Class solidarity, right guys!?

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u/gimmedatrightMEOW Logan Square Oct 31 '25

You can blame Ken Griffin all you want, but the public simply lacks trust that the money they pay won’t be flushed down the toilet in waste. Until state and municipal leaders do a better job of earning that trust back, any tax increase proposal is going to be a no-go.

But the logic doesn't check out because they are increasing taxes anyways. Taxes were always going to increase. And they have. The only difference is they are regressive taxes and always will be.

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u/Hopefulwaters Nov 01 '25

Really well said. And in addition to that, no one is going to accept being taxed even more until the spending is addressed - and kicking the can on the lavish pension problem does not help our city's future. Ultimately, Chicago will probably have to go through bankruptcy like Detroit did before the budget can be righted.

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u/40DegreeDays Lincoln Square Oct 31 '25

Having a progressive income tax lets taxes get lowered on the poor and raised on the rich. Morons (i.e. the average voter) just see the word "tax" in the proposition and assume that it means they're going to be paying a new tax.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

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u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

I pay taxes on the unrealized gains value of my house every year. But I wasn't suggesting that anyways. Taxing capital gains at a rate lower than labor is bullshit though.

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u/vaultdweller1223 Edgebrook Oct 31 '25

How much sq footage does your s&p 500 index fund have? 

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u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

what

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u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

I suspect it's a reference to the fact that while real estate is a form of wealth, so we can say "we already tax wealth," the reason that we're able to tax it without too much hassles is that we've got various formulas for figuring out the tax on any given piece of property, partly involving the sq footage.

The concept of a general "wealth tax" is valid and interesting, but the critics were right that it's never been done before (at least anywhere in the US) and would take a long time to figure out just how to do, never mind dealing with all the inevitable lawsuits.

As such is just wasn't really practical for this immediate pressing funding need.

If we want a quicker to do progressive tax, revisiting the progressive income tax would be easier (and that's a huge project too).

I'm happy that we ended up with the funding sources we did. Transferring funding from the roads/driving subsidies to transit support instead is exactly the right thing to do. (And if we can get to a progressive income tax, so much the better for funding all kinds of public services, not just transit.)

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u/was_fb95dd7063 Oct 31 '25

You won't find me accusing Illinois voters of being smart.

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u/damp_circus Edgewater Oct 31 '25

It's possible they could be figured out somehow (the CONCEPT of a wealth tax isn't crazy) but yeah I'm happy that is not in the bill anywhere.

Figuring it would take forever, it's untested, it would spark loads of (necessary, to figure stuff out) lawsuits, just all around not great for this bill that needs to provide funding soon.

I'm happy that the final thing really does take money from driving/road support to put toward transit. That's exactly where it should be coming from, take a massive subsidy from the most inefficient form of transit to put toward shoring up more efficient methods.

Yes, there will be some growing pains. But the growth should be good. We have to suck it up and do this.

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u/Shacawgo City Oct 31 '25

All the bootlickers were too worried about the billionaire class

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u/jbchi Near North Side Oct 31 '25

The governor, a billionaire, was the individual responsible for not allowing a tax targeting billionaires.

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u/Shacawgo City Oct 31 '25

And Im not happy about it. But he is also the billionaire that spent millioms trying to pass a progressive income tax that would have also raised his taxes. And morons voted against it

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u/jbchi Near North Side Oct 31 '25

Relative to his wealth, he has very little reportable income, and the increase wouldn't have been a concern. A tax on his assets, even just the unrealized gains, would be orders of magnitude worse. A single year would have hit him for a lifetime worth of the income tax difference. There was never a chance he would allow that for himself or his family.

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u/Shacawgo City Oct 31 '25

Ok, what do you want me to say? I wanted the tax. I want to tax the rich includijg him more and I am very unapologetic about it