Chicago bailout 2025
Chicago Needs a Bailout! October 8, 2025, updated October 17.
Well Well Well. Chicago Mass Transit is projected to be in the hole again $200 million in 2026 and $700 million in 2027. It looks like new taxes.
$1.50 per package delivery tax nicknamed the Amazon Tax. Included would be Doordash, UPS, Grocery Deliveries.
Leave Illinois, there is an idea to have an Illinois Exit Tax. That is, sell your house and move out of the state you will pay a tax to leave.
Illinois democrats are considering this during the Veto Session coming up.
The DeKalb Illinois Issues Facebook suggest a more obvious solution. Raise the fares of those using RTA, CTA, and Chicago Mass transit. Why make someone in Metropolis Illinois pay for the problems in the City of Chicago? Interesting thought, you use you pay!
Update October 17, 2025
From Americans for Prosperity Illinois:
ALERT:
$6.7 BILLION TAX & FEE HIKES CONSIDERED TO BAIL OUT CTA/RTA
Governor
J.B. Pritzker and House Speaker Chris Welch are proposing a package
of proposed tax and fee increases aimed at bailing out Chicago’s
financially troubled CTA and other RTA transit agencies.
This
plan piles new costs on Illinois families, commuters, and small
businesses — right when we can least afford it.
Total
proposed take: ~$6.71 BILLION per year across 23 separate hikes (yes,
twenty-three).
Transportation-Related
Tax & Fee Hikes (~$2.23B)
• RTA
Sales Tax Increase — $468M
• Tollway
Surcharge — $429M
• Tax
on Vehicle Sales — $334M
• Speed
Cameras in the RTA Region — $266.7M
• Motor
Fuel Sales Tax — $171M
• Rideshare
Tax — $169.4M
• Motor
Vehicle Registration Surcharge — $130.7M
• Road
Fund Reallocation — $100M
• Commercial
Parking Lot Fee — $80M
• Motor
Vehicle Sales Surcharge — $60M
• Auto
Rental Fees — $12.77M
• EV
Charging Fee — $3.2M
• Auto
Lease Sales Tax — $2.12M
• Sales
Tax on E-Bikes/E-Motos/E-Scooters — $1.5M
Non-Transportation-Related
Tax & Fee Hikes (~$4.49B)
• “Sales
Tax Modernization” — $2.7B
• Payroll
Tax — $688M
• Statewide
Amusement Tax — $500M
• “Billionaire”
Tax — $148M
• Estate
Tax Changes — $135M
• Retail
Delivery Fee — $102.87M
• Real
Estate Transfer Tax — $82M
• Large
Event Ticket Surcharge — $75M
• Hotel
Tax Expansion to RTA Region — $54.2M
These
are proposed tax and fee hikes, not law — yet.
But
if any one or multiple of these proposals are passed, they would
siphon more money from taxpayers to prop up transit agencies with
ridership losses, safety concerns, and bloated budgets — instead of
demanding accountability and reform.
Illinois
families already face the nation’s highest property taxes and some
of the steepest costs of living.
Now,
Governor Pritzker and Speaker Welch want to reach even deeper into
your wallet to bail out mismanaged transit systems.