33% Parking Tax in Chicago

A sign of things to come around the country?

On Tuesday, workers at a downtown parking garage will hand out flyers to motorists using their facilities, urging them to complain to their alderman. They say Chicago has the second highest parking tax in the country, and with the new proposal it could rise from 27 percent to 33 percent.

A parking industry spokesman said monthly parkers are already paying up to $780 per year in taxes alone, and people who park downtown say it is not a luxury.

“You’re at the mercy of the parking people, and they say 250, you pay 250,” commuter Richard Petrusky said. “Otherwise, you don’t park there.”

“When you think about the gas prices, you think about what you have to pay for car insurance living in the city of Chicago, when you think about how much you have to pay for parking – I wish I could take the CTA or Metra or something like that,” commuter Ken Smith added. 

The parking industry says taxes in Chicago are higher than even in New York or Los Angeles, and if customers have to pay too much, then no one will want to come downtown and it will be detrimental to other industries.

“It’ll be the sixth time in the last 12 years that they’ve raised the parking tax in the city and county. Chicago parking taxes are already higher than Manhattan. You’re gonna stop people from driving. By doing that, you’re going to stop them from going downtown,” said Brian Rainville, a spokesman for the Parking Industry Labor Management Council.

I am very proud that I don’t own a car but I could not imagine living in Chicago and not owning one. They are biting the citizens’ wallets everywhere.

ACORN office raided in Las Vegas

The ACORN office in Las Vegas was raided this morning after a warrant was issued and served.  ACORN is being investigated for voter fraud in the state of NV.  ACORN is on the payroll by the Obama campaign and had been paid to “get-the-vote-out”.  There will likely be more breaking information later, but here is the information I could find.  Nevada is a swing state once again in this year’s election.

Just Chicago politics, once again, rearing its ugly head via its new hopeful giant The Messiah himself, Obama

-Reagan21

MORE: by way of MM

Agents with the state attorney general’s and secretary of state’s offices served a search warrant this morning on the new ACORN headquarters. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now office is located at 953 E. Sahara Ave.

The warrant was part of an ongoing investigation into suspected voter registration fraud. Employees are suspected of using false addresses or false names, including those of former Dallas Cowboys, according to the secretary of state’s office.

The Sordid History of ACORN and the Ties to the Financial Meltdown

Stanley Kurtz has a great article detailing the history of ACORN and its ties to the financial meltdown. Here is the Cliffs Notes version of his work

• ACORN intimidated banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers using provisions of the 1977  Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards and to obtain “counseling” compensation.
• Heidi Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN and author of Organizing Urban America, notes that ACORN members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be” and ACORN protesters break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers.
• The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, but its exact requirements were vague and open to interpretation. Bank mergers or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaintsand intimidated representatives of banks.
• A provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by Democratic legislators, like Joseph P. Kennedy, required lenders to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income.  The statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways and groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards.
• IN 1991, House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion “affordable housing loan program” by Fannie Mae.
• A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN’s efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan guideline.
• In the Clinton administration, Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives.
• At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or “set asides” (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent.
• In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae’s business by the end of the decade.
• In June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: “Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers “who have historically been excluded from homeownership.”
• At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.

In addition to Stanley Kurtz’s work, Michelle Malkin has more on this on her site.

Chicago Politics Coming to Washington? No Thank You.

Dear Illinois Leadership – All Democrats:

Senators Obama and Durbin,
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Governor Rod Blogojevich
House Leader Mike Madigan
Attorney General Lisa Madigan (Mike’s Daughter)
Mayer Richard M. Daly (Son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)

Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago?
– Body Count: 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago …. 221 killed in Iraq.

Perhaps you will do better with the Social Security System? I don’t think so.
– IL State Pension Fund $44 Billion in debt, worst in country.

Perhaps your tax policy is better? Not unless you get high grades the higher taxes are.
– Cook County (Chicago)sales tax 10.25% – highest in the nation.

Perhaps your education policy is worthwhile? Not really.
– Chicago school system rated one of worst in the country.

This is the political culture that Obama surrounded himself with in Illinois and he’s going to “fix Washington”?

Perhaps not.

-AP