Stroge Me, Stroge Me

Todd Stroger, man of the people, finally got around to facing taxpayers in the northwest 'burbs of Chicago. Stroger, the Cook County Board President, was set to explain his $426 million tax hike.

The Background: Stroger is the son of the late John Stroger, who served as the Cook County Board President for 12 years. Todd was appointed to Alderman of the 8th Ward by The Mayor to replace Lorraine Dixon, who died in office. When his father, John, suffered a stroke in March of 2006, it didn't impede his winning the Democratic nomination and despite not being seen in public since the serious stroke, we were all informed by Todd that his father was going to run for County Board President yet again. In June of 2006, John was removed from the ballot and replaced by his son, Todd, per the decision of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee. The backing of The Mayor ensured that there was no opposition to this move and Todd was eventually elected to office in November of that year.

Stroger went on to hire his cousin as CFO and give her a nice $17,000 pay raise and his 2008 budget contained the largest ever Cook County sales tax increase for the county (a 1% increase to 1.75%)

Back to the present: After ducking an April 30th town hall meeting, Stroger finally made an appearance. When confronted with concerned citizens, Stroger was unfazed. Hearing claims of distrust and disgust did nothing to sway him; nor did the talk of secession. In fact, Stroger went in front of these fine folks to say, "people don't trust politicians....and that's the way this job works." He further informed the people that some people will get "pinched" by a sales tax increase.

Perhaps Todd isn't concered that Chicago now has the highest sales tax (10.25%) of any major US city. In fact, Stroger was trying to create a cash reserve as a hedge against future tax hikes.

Now that's balls. He's doing it for the people!

You're running a government, asshole. You don't get to hold the peoples' money in reserve for when your shortsited bullshit, rampant mismanagement and greasy hiring practices result in yet another budget shortfall.

Someone has to get pinched all right.