Calling that minute, half-percentage point reduction “tax relief” is an insult to the taxpayers of Cook County — who deserve nothign less than a full repeal of the Stroger tax hike.

Commissioner Peraica is quoted in the Tribune:

“In my mind, it was just a partial rollback of an ill-advised tax increase,” said Commissioner Tony Peraica, R-Riverside, who voted against the original increase. “I wanted the whole increase rolled back.”

Why else — after being reprimanded by both the Chicago media and the County Board — would he go ahead and approve yet another questionable taxpayer-funded contract to a crony?

The Daily Herald reports:

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s administration acknowledged Wednesday that 25 checks worth more than $6.7 million were paid out before receiving the required board approval.

Stroger attributed the “mistake” to “human error,” calling it “more of an issue of you pressed a button when you shouldn’t have done it.” He asked for tolerance, saying, “This is not time to pull someone over the rails.”

Yet, Riverside Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica said some of the checks were as large as $700,000 and pointed to it as a dramatic escalation of the so-called 24-9 contracts - payments just under the $25,000 figure requiring board approval - that Stroger handed out as a lame duck after losing in the Democratic Primary earlier this year. “The ship is not being steered,” Peraica said. “The management is not managing.”

$6.7 million worth of “human error.”  Commissioner Peraica is right that the ship isn’t being steered. In fact, it hit the iceberg a long time ago.

And county taxpayers are left treading water.

Citizens For Peraica Fundraiser

August 26, 2010

6:00pm - 10:00pm

Donation: $75 per person

Pescatore Palace Banquet Hall

3400 N. River Rd.

Franklin Park, IL

That’s right —in the small suburban town of only 250 residents, CBS 2 news reporter Kristyn Hartman counted at least 12 relatives of Mayor Jeffrey Tobolski, including his own wife who work or contract for something with the village of McCook.

From the police station to the public library — it was hard not to find a place where a family member of Tobolski wasn’t on the village payroll.

“I am sickened when I see taxpayer money wasted year after year on the unnecessary jobs and positions just to keep somebody’s nephew, mother, sister, paid,” said Peraica.

Check out the video below from last nights interview on CBS 2 News Chicago.

State documents show that Cook County lost $2.7 million meant to teach job skills to hundreds of suburban residents because it didn’t spend the federal money.

The cash was lost at a time when more than one out of 10 Chicago-area workers are unemployed.

Because of the problems, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is moving to take over the program until Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s term ends in December.

The good news is that action is being taken to hold this program accountable.  The bad news is that the new watchdog will be the State of Illinois.

First, despite rising taxes and fees, tax collections are actually down in the state (again).  As the Champaign News-Gazette reports, overall state tax collections are down 9.5% in July.

The reason for this decline? Simple:  people are out of work.  When they are out of work, their incomes drop (obviously).  That leads to a drop in income tax revenues.  They also consume less, which leads to a drop in sales taxes.  It is for that reason that increasing the income tax and keeping sales taxes high will only further decimate our economy.

If government takes more of the people’s money, it will only cause them to suffer more and spend less. For those individuals who are small business owners, that will also affect job creation.

Pat Quinn and Todd Stroger are wrong:  we need less, not more, taxes.

That coincides with another story today that shows that “Chicago is the worst tax city for travelers.”   USA Today reports on a new study by the National Business Travel Association:

The study looked at the 50 U.S. cities with the most air passengers. It found that a typical business traveler pays $101.27 in taxes on average for hotel, rental car and meals during a three-day, two-night stay in Chicago— more than in any other city.

So, in other words, our local politicians are doing their best to repel new visitors, tourists and conventioneers from our city.  Once again, that won’t result in more tax revenue — it will result in further economic harm that will put our governments deeper in debt.

Not smart.  Not smart at all.

But something tells us Todd (or someone in the campaign) knows exactly where that cash went.

On primary election day, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger cashed two big campaign checks to provide money for getting out the vote. Now the campaign can’t explain exactly where the cash went.

Stroger himself went to Seaway Bank that morning and cashed checks for $18,000 and $25,000. The checks were made out to Stroger. Campaign officials tell us the $43,000 in cash was given to campaign workers as “walking around money” — petty cash used to pay campaign workers.

Walking around money?

Sounds little bit fishy to us.  And, as Fox Chicago News reports, the way this money was handled violates campaign finance laws.

As Commissioner Peraica is quoted in the story:

“There’s a pattern of misreporting, false inaccurate incomplete information, that is done either intentionally or gross (negligence) by his finance campaign director,” said Peraica.

Is it just us, or has this been the longest, most troubled “lame duck” period for any politician in history?

Todd, we can’t wait to see you retire.

Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-16), who is also a real estate attorney, is looking for real reform. “We need to reform the tax assessment process to reflect that of Texas, Florida and dozens of other states where you don’t need a PhD in mathematics to figure out how your real estate is assessed and taxed,” Peraica said. “I don’t support these gimmicks and would move for a system that would promote truth in taxation. I would support acquisition based assessment: what is the purchase price of the property, apply the tax levy of various taxing units (there are way to many) and that is your bill. Forget about the equalizer. Exemptions granted should be clear and easy to calculate/implement.”

CBS 2 Chicago’s Vince Gerasole reports:

Where is the federal aid? Thousands of rain-soaked and flood-ravaged families in our area are asking that question. Torrential downpours last weekend dumped 60 billion gallons of water on the Chicago area. Today those folks are still trying to clean up and dry out.

“The process is fraught with bureaucracy and it is taking too long,” said Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica.

Peraica sponsored a disaster information seminar Saturday morning. He says a team from the County is in Washington today lobbying the state’s Congressional delegation and the White House to push the declaration along, a process that could take up to six more weeks.