Ministers tell 'northwest' legislators to back off repealing sales tax

Taking a direct aim at the Northwest suburbs and northwest side of Chicago, a group of Chicago and South suburban ministers called for the defeat of several bills pending in Springfield that would roll back the 2008 Cook County sales tax increase.

A Northwest suburban legislator fired right back, saying his constituents are sick and tired of paying exorbitant amounts of taxes for a wasteful system.

All of the posturing came for a few legislative proposals that appear not to have much of a chance of passing in the first place.

The controversy stems from the now-infamous 1 percentage-point, $380 million sales tax increase Cook County Board President Todd Stroger passed in the 2008 budget. Critics say it funds a bloated, wasteful patronage empire; the ministers say it funds needed health care at a time when unemployment rolls are swelling and more and more people are turning to public health care.

"This is the wrong time to play politics with people's lives. It's a matter of life and death," said Rev. Marshall Hatch of the New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church on Chicago's West Side. The group didn't name any legislators, but referred to "northwest Democrats" in their press release decrying the legislation.

"I'm not persuaded that the county can't make any kind of economies or they can't do anything to run a leaner operation than they are now and that therefore they need every penny," said state Rep. Paul Froehlich, a Schaumburg Democrat who is sponsoring one of the rollback measures.

But he faces an uphill battle. Because of the county's home rule powers, he needs to garner three-fifths of the House vote: 71 of the 118 members. There is no indication the measure has that kind of support.

Ministers claimed that if the money were taken back, it would mean closing two of the system's three hospitals, its AIDS treatment center and several clinics.

How that is possible is unclear. The health system represents about one-third of Cook County's $3 billion budget. If it had to absorb one-third of the lost revenues, that would amount to a cut of approximately $130 million.

County budget books say Provident Hospital on Chicago's South Side has a budget of about $94 million while the South suburbs' Oak Forest Hospital has a budget of about $91 million. If both closed, it would represent savings in excess of the $130 million. Pressed to explain the numbers, ministers could not.

"I didn't drive all the way here (Stroger Hospital near the Loop) just to stand here to say something that just makes sense," said Apostle Carl White Jr., chairman of the Southland Ministerial Health Network in Markham. "It's got to be morally understood that if you misuse the least of them (the poor), you misuse all of them."