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Preckwinkle Defends Plan To Raise Cook County Sales Tax

(CBS) -- Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is defending her attempt to bring back the sales tax increase she vowed to eliminate when she first ran for the office, reports WBBM's Craig Dellimore.

Preckwinkle says she wants to re-impose the sales tax increase because her government is facing hundreds of millions in pension debt even after cutting spending and she says county commissioners have no appetite for a property tax hike.

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"Of course it is a last resort," Preckwinkle said. "We've spent the last five years balancing our budgets without a tax increase and we've worked very hard to do that."

She is not expecting much help from the state either.

"I talked to the governor about our pension plan and he wanted me to support his turnaround agenda and of course I couldn't do that and there is kind of an impasse," Preckwinkle said. "The governor wants a property tax freeze at local level so maybe he'll be happy that we are raising sales taxes instead of property taxes."

She needs nine votes on the county board to pass the sales tax increase.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports she's not alone in moving to raise taxes. House Speaker Mike Madigan is doing a dance with Governor Rauner to close a $4 billion budget deficit.

"I feel we need a balanced approach some cuts, some new revenue, Madigan said.

Meaning taxes. And then there's the mayor, who ducked us today after attending a community meeting. Leaving us to go back to what his budget chairman Alderman Carrie Austin said about a tax increase back in March.

And then there's the mayor, who ducked us today after attending a community meeting. His hand was tipped by his budget chairman Alderman Carrie Austin said about a tax increase back in March.

One estimate on how much the mayor needs: $1.6 billion the budget deficit and school and public safety pension payments.

Add that to the county's proposed $360 million sales tax hike and the state's $4 billion deficit, and we're faced with the possibility of nearly $6 billion in new taxes next year.

Preckwinkle says she's already got the votes for her sales tax hike. But Springfield is still hoping spending cuts and the mayor is trying to spread out pension payments, but $6 billion is the starting point and the challenge will be saving anywhere near what they'll be asking us to pay.

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