Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has quit his waffling on whether or not he's going to veto a recent board decision to repeal a 1% sales tax increase, and has answered in the affirmative. Appearing moments ago on the Cliff Kelley show on WVON-1690, the Toddler told Kelley getting rid of the tax would harm funding of all public safety, treasurer, transportation, and health departments, and made the case for the vast amount of responsibility Stroger has running the county government, as well as talking about his general level of awesomeness. Stroger says he has determined that rolling back the tax now would create a deficit next year of $245 million, and "probably a half billion the year after that." He also claimed that the move to repeal was purely political and a way to embarrass him, and he "can't play politics when it affects people's lives, it's too important." more ›

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger officially asked county commissioners to reduce the county sales tax by a quarter of a percent Wednesday, although he couldn't give any hard numbers about why the reduction was possible, or where the funding to replace it would come from. He told the press that the lack of "hard numbers" was because the county was still in talks with the federal government. He expects that federal recovery act funds will help close the gap on county services. Stroger persuaded county commissioners to raise the sales tax by one percent last year, saying that county services would be severely cut without the drastic hike. more ›

Is the Toddler feeling the heat from the recent (albeit symbolic) suburban vote to leave Cook County? Is he afraid that he's going to get his ass handed to him in the Democratic primary for jacking up county taxes and not delivering competent county services? That may be the impetus for his proposal to roll back county taxes by a whopping quarter of a percent. more ›