Countdown to Rahmageddon: "The Rahm Tax"

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 7, 2011 4:20PM

Gery Chico has the distinction of being the first mayoral candidate to launch an attack ad with the video below pouncing on Rahm Emanuel's proposed tax plan.

Emanuel's plan is a tax swap where the city's portion of the sales tax is reduced from 1.25 percent to 1 percent, but that 20 percent is then transferred towards an increase in what the Rahm camp calls "luxury services:" things such as tanning salons, limousine rides, and memberships at tony private clubs such as the East Bank Club. Emanuel's miscalculation was in not defining what determined a "luxury item." For example: as originally laid out, a membership to Cardinal Fitness could be susceptible to the same luxury tax as an East Bank Club membership. Or a taxi ride could conceivably be lumped in with limousine and other livery services and subject to the luxury tax.

The Chico campaign, now running a solid second in the polls over the dead-in-the-water Carol Moseley Braun campaign, has been persistently attacking this first non-residency chink in the Emanuel campaign's armor, framing the vagueness of the Emanuel tax plan as being a potential burden on working class families that may have never heard of the East Bank Club, go to high end pet groomers or visit tanning salons. Chico's campaign has also given Emanuel's tax plan a catchy phrase: "The Rahm Tax."

Emanuel's campaign has tried to define what services would be targets of a luxury tax in the weeks since unveiling his proposal. But with money to spend and the Feb. 22 election looming, the Chico campaign may finally force Emanuel to do what he really hasn't had to do thus far - defend a foundation of his campaign platform.