Pritzker pours cold water on latest Chicago transit bailout proposal

Facing a Thursday midnight deadline, House Democrats dropped a sweeping transit overhaul to bailout Chicago area transit paid for by various new taxes that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker seemed to pour cold water on.

Wednesday in Springfield a comprehensive transit legislation picked up speed, then stalled.

“As it is, it’s not going forward,” Pritzker said.

House Democrats filed legislation to overhaul Chicago area mass transit.  

CTA, Metra and Pace face a $230 million funding shortfall next year and lawmakers say this new bill would raise $1.5 billion in revenue. 

The measure increases RTA’s existing sales tax by 25 cents, adds a 7 percent amusement tax on streaming services, adds a $5 surcharge on tickets for large concerts, expands speed cameras in the suburbs, and adds a billionaire tax – 4.95 percent collected on their unrealized investment gains.

“Nobody loves to pay additional taxes, but everybody loves to be able to ride on a transit system that is functional, that is on time,” State Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado (D) (Chicago) said.

Republicans slammed the new taxes.

“It’s not clear to me all this revenue stream is going to be needed,” State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R) (St. Charles) said.

Democratic Pritzker, a billionaire, urged lawmakers to move slowly implementing a billionaires’ tax.

“It’s a tax on unrealized capital gains, it’s never been done before. It’s never been done before by any state, never been done by the federal government,” Pritzker said. “So once again you’ve got to do a whole lot of work before you can pass a bill that you really don’t know how it would work or if you could even collect on it.”

The governor also slammed expansion of speed cameras.

“It’s a bad idea. We’ve had so many problems with speed cameras in this state. There’s been corruption around them. Honestly, I think we need to take a pause,” he said.

Oversight in the bill includes creating a Northern Illinois Transit Authority which would oversee all three agencies and have the power to establish a universal fare and coordinate scheduling.

The bill also creates a law enforcement task force to deal with public safety issues on trains and buses.

The House legislation ditches a plan passed by the Senate back in the spring. That proposal added a $1.50-per-package tax on some deliveries. But the governor hinted that could come back.

“There’s got to be a lot of discussion between the House and the Senate in order to come up with a final bill because it isn’t going to look like what the House has put forward,” Pritzker said.

Thursday is the last day of the veto session. If lawmakers miss the deadline to pass a transit bill they’d have to wait for a special session or until they meet next spring.