Spotlight Politics: Pritzker Family Feud Over ‘Fair Tax’


As early voting expands across the city’s 50 wards, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has seven more days to put the finishing touches on the plan she will present to the Chicago City Council to fill a $799 million budget gap in the 2020 budget and an additional projected shortfall of $1.2 billion in the city’s 2021 spending plan.

The lack of federal aid means most observers think Lightfoot will have no choice but to propose a property tax increase, a politically perilous and fraught option.

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Speaking of taxes, billionaire Pritzker cousins are hurling cash at opposing sides of the “fair tax” amendment.

“I don’t know if you have a cousin and whether you agree with your cousin on everything,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday. “But let’s just be clear: the fair tax is about making the system fairer for the middle class and for people who are striving to get to the middle class, and asking the wealthiest people in the state to pay a little bit more.”

Retired Col. Jennifer Pritzker is the cousin the governor was referring to.

Both the city and state directors of public health appeared Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.” 

Here’s what Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said about the state’s rising number of COVID-19 cases:

“We have to make sure that we’re taking all the necessary precautions because nobody — I’m speaking for the governor — nobody wants another stay-at-home or healthy-at-home or whatever.”

Supreme Court battle

Illinois’ senior Senator Dick Durbin hammered away at Supreme Court nominee Amy Comey Barrett during her confirmation hearing Wednesday.

Barrett again avoided taking positions on a variety of subjects and rulings, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on cases that may come before her as a justice.

Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky, Heather Cherone, Paris Schutz and Carol Marin discusses these stories and more in this week’s edition of “Spotlight Politics.”


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