Category: Chicagoland

Economic Recovery Prevention Commission

I must not have been paying attention, but apparently on June 24 Governor Quinn’s Economic Recovery Commission issued its report. If we’re lucky, this will be one of those that just sits on the shelf.

The whole report is at the link above, or get the pdf from the direct link here, provided by the Executive Service Corps. It seems that a summary would be: “Raise taxes and make them more complicated, then give more subsidies to favored interests.” Among the tax increases are higher individual and corporate income taxes, and a broadening of the sales tax to include more services.

Those of us with a sound understanding of economics will be shocked discouraged to find that there is no mention of increasing the taxes on land value as a way of encouraging development and easing taxes on productive activity.

I’m not likely to review the whole report in detail, and doubtless it contains a few sound recommendations. I’ll just mention two other things that struck me.

First, we all know about TIF’s which divert real estate taxes to private pockets, and there are quite a few TIF’s that divert sales taxes, but this is the first I’ve heard of a TIF that diverts state income tax:

The CenterPoint Intermodal Center in Joliet, a 3,900-acre state-of-the-art, integrated intermodal center,  represents a $2 billion private investment. The center also will receive State investment under theIntermodal Facilities Promotion Act, signed last year. Designed to encourage business development along the freight rail systems of Illinois, the Act authorizes income taxes from jobs created at the facility to be placed in an Intermodal Facilities Promotion Fund. DCEO will administer the fund to reimburse CenterPoint for infrastructure improvements. DCEO will award an annual grant of up to $3 million in fiscal years 2010 to 2016.

Second, among the recommendations is an increase in the public employee retirement age to 72. I am no expert in retirement ages, and probably it’s appropriate to push the age up from 60 (which I believe it is now, and younger in many cases), but 72? No basis is given for choosing this age (other than the obvious fiscal benefits of more workers and fewer retirees. My guess is that nobody takes this recommendation seriously; had they recommended 65 or 67, there’d be a danger that the change might actually happen, but there are probably enough stories of senile 72-year-olds to prevent anything from being done.

Have medallion prices peaked?

When last reviewed here, prices for Chicago taxi medallions had risen to an average of $185,000.  Prices have since peaked at $202,000, but now are below that previous level.  The March Chicago Dispatcher printed edition includes an ad offering to pay medallion owners $750/month, which implies almost 5% ROI if prices stabilize.

Month                Price               Source
February ’10      $183,000        Chicago Dispatcher
January ’10        $184,000        Chicago Dispatcher
December ’09    $202,000       Chicago Dispatcher
October ‘09       $185,000       City of Chicago
May ‘09             $170,000       Chicago Dispatcher
April ‘09            $164,500        Chicago Dispatcher
March ‘09           $165,000        Chicago Dispatcher
February ‘09      $158,000        Chicago Dispatcher
Feb ‘07               $  77,000        Chicago Tribune
2004                   >$40,000       Chicago Tribune
1991                     $28,000         Chicago Sun Times

Eventually the City of Chicago may post more recent information here (scroll down to “Taxicab Medallion Transfer Price List” for the pdf report.)

Illinois judges

We elect our Illinois  judges, and vote periodically to retain them, all of which doesn’t seem to improve their quality over what we might get from “merit” selection.  In theory it could, but who, except some local lawyers and victims, knows anything about the various judges?  At election time some of the former do publish evaluations, which seem to affect 5% or 10% of the vote and might be reliable.

But now there’s a place where we can all share our experience and views on individual judges. Judgepedia is a rather sparse wiki right now, but it could be the right place to record your experiences, or even just what you read in “in the papers.”  There seems to be a page for every judge in the state (and nationwide too?), with a map of the “circuits” and a link for each.

Illinois Fiscal Rehab

Our friends over at the Civic Federation on Monday issued a “Fiscal Rehabilitation Plan for the State of Illinois.”  It has a pretty decent summary of where we stand financially, and by what route we got here.  The short version of this is, we are in deep doo doo.  And in recent years, the doo doo has been spread around in confusing ways, making it harder to trace the problem.  But now, no question about it, we have retiree benefit liabilities far beyond the funds available to pay them, debt has been increasing, and programs for the poor are facing increasing burdens with decreasing resources, while tax revenues have been slipping. (The report doesn’t discuss infrastructure needs.)

The report, funded by some of Chicago’s wealthiest foundations, recommends freezing or cutting funds for  State programs, reducing pension obligations to the extent possible, raising the personal income tax 67% and corporate tax 33%, and removing a few relatively minor tax breaks.  It also suggests that pension income be taxed and that the State move toward taxing consumer services.  Despite these tax increases and ongoing national economic difficulty, it pretends that the income and sales tax bases will not decrease.

Of course this is a dumb plan.  Frozen or reduced expenditures will be inadequate to meet the State’s needs. Increased rates of tax on productive activity will cause some of that activity to leave Illinois, or simply not to occur.   When they see their income become subject to tax, some pensioners will choose to move out of state– and the ones best able to leave are the affluent ones, who pay sales and property tax and don’t so much burden public services.

But the State is in a fiscal hole, so if I don’t like the Civic Federation’s plan shouldn’t I suggest one of my own?  Despite the lack of foundation funding, that is what I shall do.

I won’t comment much on the expenditure side. Probably some pension cutbacks are appropriate, and there is surely plenty of fraud and waste in many programs (tho catching it is difficult).   Some programs certainly could be eliminated, but the big ones– education, transportation, aid to those unable to work– are necessary in some form.  Also, there is an existing debt of about  $25 billion, plus $66 billion in unfunded retiree liabilities (for past years). So we need a lot of revenue.  How to get it?

What about a land value tax? Now, nobody knows what the land of our State is worth, but we know for sure that it isn’t moving away.  It might be $2 trillion.  Suppose we were to tax that at, say 1% of value.  That’s $20 billion/year, more than the total raised by the State sales, corporate and personal income taxes. That bails us out of the debt in a few years, allowing eventual elimination of these other taxes.

Is it fair? It’s more fair than asking hardworking people to share their salaries with the State, then pay again when they purchase things.  (The Illinois sales tax originated, in 1933, as a way to eliminate the real estate tax.) It’s not just fairer, but also smarter, than telling employers and retirees that if they stay in Illinois, the State will take a share, an increasing share, of their income..

I have a special affinity for taxing farmland, because I look at listings like this 210-acre farm where real estate tax is only 1/10th of 1% of value.  Others pay even less.  It’s quite legal, tax preferences for “farmland” even tho the owners in most cases are investors, not farmers.  There are plenty of urban examples, too, some illustrated here.

Although Civic Federation’s recommendations are foolish, I think descriptive portions of the report are pretty good.  Two things I learned are, first, that the number of State employees has dropped about 20% in the past decade, and second, that expenditures on “Corrections” are only about $1.1 billion/year. It still would be a good idea to let all the innocent people out of prison, but that’s not going to solve our budget problem. However, if we raise taxes as the Civic Federation suggests, those released, as well as the rest of us, are unlikely to be able to find jobs.

POSTED: Assessor candidates debate

An mp3 audio file of the debate is now (February 2, 11 PM CST) available for download here.  At least two of the candidates  (Robert Grota and Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall, of the Green and Republican parties respectively) will be on the November ballot.  The two Democrats, Ray Figueroa and Robert Shaw, may (according to incomplete returns) have been defeated by a third candidate, who did not participate.

Inconveniently, the debate was held less than five days before the election, and it took our co-sponsor  more than four days to produce the audio file. Perhaps next election we will achieve better scheduling. It is also possible that most voters would not choose to listen to a 101-minute discussion on this subject, but at least we had hoped to provide the opportunity.

I will have some comments on the content of the debate subsequently.

Going to the candidates’ debate

Cook County Assessor candidates, that is. Five folks will be on the ballot, 3 Dems (one of whom will emerge from next Tuesday’s primary), one Green and one Repub.  Can you say “pandering to real estate homeowners?” Of course people hate to pay taxes, but whose burden is hardest to bear, those who own real estate or those who must rent their abodes? What it comes down to, of course, is that homeowners vote, and real estate tax bills have big black numbers.  Whereas renters are much less likely to vote, and are nickled and dimed (make that $5 and $10) by sales tax and income tax that are harder to see.

Anyhow, the debate is this Thursday, at the Union League Club (65 W Jackson), 4:30 PM.  It is open to the public without charge, but you must register in advance (by calling 312 435-5946) and you must dress in nothing less than business casual attire.  A bit more detail here.

Rentiers are welcome in the U S

Some Americans may not be aware that U S Citizenship– or at least, lawful permanent residency– has long been for sale, legally and aboveboard. It’s called the EB5 program, and essentially provides that any foreigner “investing” $500,000 to $1 million in a U. S. business can become a legal permanent resident.  And, of course, entrepreneurs have found the niche market, setting up businesses in which foreigners may invest, without taking an active role in management of the enterprise.

A Chinese and American joint venture is “converting the dormant Northridge mall in Milwaukee into a regional shopping center featuring merchandise from Chinese retailers” according to Milwaukee Business Journal.  Presumably, each of the 200 Chinese retailers expected could support one or more EB5 visas.  300-500 local residents are expected to be hired, tho I think it’s a bit imaginative to suggest that these jobs would be “created” by the project.  Rather, like most economic development incentives, they are simply shifted from elsewhere.

A China Daily report on the project indicates that the Chinese investors might not be familiar with primitive North American travel conditions.  Milwaukee “is only an hour away from Chicago,” says the developer. Maybe someday.

Of course, the poor would-be immigrant has no similar opportunity.  She cannot say “I will work to build a business that will employ Americans,” nor even “I will borrow a half-million dollars to invest,” as the program doesn’t permit this.

So, as existing Americans, are we better off inviting a bunch of rentiers, or a bunch of hardworking laborers?  Too many people believe that the latter will drive down American wages– which may appear to be true, only because we fail to consider what the immigrants can produce.

If we insist on inviting rentiers, we have chosen an inefficient way to do it.  Instead of requiring $500,000 invested in a business, when plenty of American entrepreneurs are already able to supply capital, we could simply require $500,000 paid toward reduction of the Federal debt.

More bad news on seating

We have known for years that the new CTA railcars would have longitudinal seating.  Not particularly comfortable, but allegedly provides more standing room, and more wheelchair space.  A few new cars are now on the property and undergoing testing, so now we know that:

  • the new seats are the  regular substandard width, contoured kind, probably the least comfortable for bench seats;
  • the design fails to efficiently use even the limited space available.

Regarding the latter point, if there is, say, an extra six inches in the space occupied by a row of, say, five seats, it is physically possible to space them an extra 1.5″ apart, providing a bit more space.  In fact, some CTA buses implement this concept on the rear bench.  But not the railcars.  The first pic illustrates this.
making a bad situation worse

One wonders what is expected to happen in the several extra inches at the end of the car.

Below are a couple more pics. These were taken yesterday at Howard, where a test train paused briefly at the platform. Sorry about the poor quality (of the images); they were taken thru thehigh-reflectivity glass used on these cars.

what your tax money buys
your tax dollars

Even if they operate well (of which there is no guarantee), it is evident that these are the most uncomfortable cars yet.  Unfortunately, the same has been said about every car order since at least 1972, and it is all too likely that captive riders will become accustomed, and the few noncaptives will depart.  (Or be made captive by decreasing incomes and increasing parking costs).

Speculating in cab medallions

Prices below are medians (2009), and “average” for earlier years.

Month                Price               Source

October ’09        $185,000       City of Chicago
May ‘09             $170,000       Chicago Dispatcher
April ‘09            $164,500        Chicago Dispatcher
March ‘09           $165,000        Chicago Dispatcher
February ‘09      $158,000        Chicago Dispatcher
Feb ‘07               $  77,000        Chicago Tribune
2004                   >$40,000       Chicago Tribune
1991                     $28,000         Chicago Sun Times

The October list includes two sales at $190,000.

As medallion prices rise despite a sagging economy, this seems to me to indicate that fares are already too high and should be reduced, which would allow medallion prices to fall and, in theory, drivers would be unaffected while passengers benefit.

But Chicago Dispatcher publisher George Lutfallah sees it differently.  Due to difficult conditions in the taxi industry, individual medallion owners are selling their medallions to big owners– the taxi equivalent of land speculators. Lutfallah sees this as a bad thing, “a taxi driver who owns his or her own cab is more likely to take better care of both the vehicle and the customer.”  He therefore recommends a fare increase.  (source: print edition of Chicago Dispatcher October ’09)