Mass Transit Vote

(Posted 01/23/08) - There is no doubt that a strong mass transit system in Chicago benefits all of Illinois. There are some portions of House Bill 656 that I liked and supported, such as the CTA’s pension fund reforms, further oversight by the RTA over the CTA and the other service boards, as well as giving Metra the ability to bond money for large projects similar to the way the CTA currently bonds money. Providing more collar county representation on the RTA board is also a positive, but for DuPage County which has a much higher population, there is an inequity because all the collar counties are treated the same.

Unfortunately, the proposals voted upon last week only solve a small part of the mass transit problem while raising taxes on area families and seniors, especially on their groceries and prescription drugs, therefore, I voted “no”. History has shown that collar county dollars have traditionally been funneled to the CTA and the City of Chicago and I see no safeguards in House Bill 656 that sunsets any of the new dollars that the state will have to match into perpetuity.

CTA President Ron Huberman has said that there are $6.3 billion in unfunded capital projects at the CTA including basic needs like new track and railroad ties and the need to replace aging trains and buses. There is no money included in the proposals passed last week to buy new buses or trains, tracks or wheels, or to improve service for commuters. Because we have not addressed the infrastructure issues, the CTA will be back asking for significant more dollars in the very near future.

I opposed the transportation bill sent to the Governor last week for several reasons. This bill imposes a ¼ percent sales tax increase in Cook County – raising the sales tax in Chicago to 9.25 percent – that’s higher than the 8.375% sales tax in New York City. It also raises the sales tax in the collar counties, including DuPage County, by a ½ percent. This means residents in my district will have to pay a ½ percent more to buy daily necessities like: groceries, clothing and prescription drugs.

The legislation also gives the Chicago City Council the ability to enact a higher real estate transfer tax: $12.00 on every $1,000 of transferred real property, or 1.2%. This will raise the tax on real estate transfers to one of the highest in the United States. I think this may compound the problem for home sales in an already sluggish housing economy.

It is not fair to ask those residing in the collar counties to pay so much for a mass transit system that they simply do not use to the same extent, especially when those who use the mass transit system were not even asked to help solve the problem through a modest fare increase. I am told that only a small percentage of DuPage county residents use mass transit. Commuters in my area are being forced to pay higher gas prices….in fact, the price of gasoline has jumped by nearly $1 over the past year. Having said that, I believe a modest fare increase by those who use mass transit is not an unreasonable request. I also believe that the city of Chicago, which depends so much on mass transit, could have contributed some dollars to help bring about a fairer solution.

Beyond that, the governor added an amendatory veto that allows senior citizens from mass transit regions to ride free, which means that eventually some other group will have to pick up that cost. My seniors had the courage to call and tell me how outrageous they thought this amendment was and clearly asked me to vote “no”. My low income and disabled constituents felt like they were left out in the cold with no consideration for their needs.

To make matters worse, the legislation before the Governor will require the state to match 30 percent of all money raised by the real estate transfer tax as well as the sales tax – creating an estimated $100 million additional burden on our general revenue fund budget. You may have recently read news articles in January reporting that the State of Illinois has a back log of bills totaling more than $1.7 billion. I am not sure how we can afford to give Chicago another entitlement of this size when we cannot pay existing debt. This $100 million will be an annual obligation the state will have to pay… money that we can no longer allocate to schools, to healthcare or to pay our bills.

I fully support legislation that addresses the needs of the Chicago mass transit system. That is why Representative Mike Fortner introduced legislation, House Bill 4185, in late November, of which I am the chief co-sponsor. We firmly believed this was a reasonable way to address the issue, but to no avail as the legislation was never considered as a serious solution.