“DOWNTOWN—YOU’RE GONNA BE ALRIGHT NOW”…AS LONG AS YOU DON’T HAVE TO PARK

4/19/13

Rarely do I get the chance to defend a tax, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and a Chicago alderman in the same post, but the proposed parking tax in my hometown has provided this once in a millennium opportunity.

The current parking tax in Chicago is on a sliding scale but ramps up quickly to a maximum of $5.00 on any parking charge of $12.00 or more.  That results in a top tax rate of 41.7%.   Mayor Emanuel would like to replace that onerous taxing scheme with a straight 20% during the week and 18% on weekends.   While this would result in a higher tax rate on some parkers, and increased parking tax revenue overall, the scheme is straightforward and clean, replacing a highly regressive tax with a flat tax.  It’s the type system we should use for our income tax at the national level, but that is grist for a later mill.

At the City Council Finance Committee hearings on the proposed parking tax scheme, Mr. Marc Gordon, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association, argued against the tax, stating that the tax

“…has a severe impact on our hotels and overnight guests who stay there,”

who pay an average of $42.31 per night to park at a downtown hotel and can face charges as high as $50.00.

Wait a minute….

Mr. Gordon whines that charging a parking tax of $10.00 per night discourages people from staying downtown.  It’s hard to disagree with that contention; however, how about the $50.00 per night some hotels are charging?   That doesn’t discourage people from staying downtown?  If the hoteliers who have hired Mr. Gordon as their lobbyist were so concerned about disincentives to patronizing their places of business, perhaps they should consider the disincentive effects of the outrageous sums they are charging for parking.  

28^th Ward Alderman Jason Ervin had it just about right when he said

“Why is parking so high to start with?  The amounts I’ve seen in some of these hotels are just ridiculous.   That probably has (sic) a greater detriment.”

I say “just about” right because Alderman Ervin shouldn’t have included the adverb “probably” in the above statement; there is no doubt that the prices the downtown hotels charge for parking, and for rooms, provide a huge disincentive to stay downtown.  Doubtless Mr. Gordon and those who have employ him would like to avoid that topic altogether.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.