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· Marcus, the organizerFact-check: Pass

They're Still Taxing Your Groceries. Here's the Play.

Trump promised to lower grocery prices. They went up. And my own mayor wants to keep taxing them.

Trump promised to lower grocery prices. They went up. And my own mayor wants to keep taxing them.
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Alright, pull up - we're doing this together. Your grocery bill is up double digits this year. Trump promised he'd bring it down; he didn't. And right here in my city, Chicago, the mayor is fighting to keep a tax on your groceries. Left, right - everybody failed the dinner table. So let's stop yelling about it and run the ground game.

First, the situation, no spin. The Sun-Times ran the receipts. A single cart at Jewel went from two sixty three to two eighty five in about a year. Grocery prices in Chicago climbed double digits. This is not a feeling. It is a number, and that number is sitting in your fridge making it look a lot emptier.

And zoom out, because it is worse than one bad year. Food is up almost twenty nine percent since twenty nineteen. That is faster than overall inflation. Your paycheck did not get twenty nine percent friendlier. So this gap right here is just coming straight out of your life, quietly, every single week.

28.6 — food prices since 2019 - faster than inflation
Chicago Sun-Times

Now here is where I lose half my own group chat. Trump vowed to lower prices; they went up. But my side does not get a pass either. My Democratic mayor is fighting to keep a local grocery tax, about seventy three million dollars, a tax on the single most basic thing there is, eating. I do not care whose jersey you wear. Taxing groceries in the middle of grocery inflation is malpractice.

So run the whip count with me. Who can actually move this? Your city council, because that grocery tax is local - they vote on it. The state, which just killed the statewide version. Your own block, because co-ops and bulk-buying are real. And you, at the one budget meeting they are hoping you skip.

WHO'S GOT THE POWER?

  • City council - the tax is LOCAL
  • The state - it killed the statewide one
  • Your block - co-ops & bulk-buying
  • You - at the budget vote

And here is the pressure point, the soft spot. Fixing national grocery prices? That is hard. Killing one local grocery tax is the easiest win on the whole board. You do not have to solve inflation to take a tax off of bread. Seventy three million dollars, one city council vote. That is a winnable fight, today.

$73M — the local grocery tax - one city-council vote
Illinois Policy

So here is the play. Local, winnable, loud. The hard part is not winning the argument, it is that the room where they actually vote is usually empty. And empty rooms are exactly how bad taxes survive. So we fill it. That, right there, is the entire secret of local politics, and now you know it too.

RUN THE PLAY

  • Local
  • Winnable
  • Loud - fill the empty room

So here is your ask this week, and it is small. Look up when your city votes on the grocery tax - it is public, it takes two minutes. Put it in your calendar. Then text one neighbor the number their own bill went up. They are betting that room stays empty. Let's go fill it. Now go do something with it. I'm Marcus, and this is Pixel Politics.

THE ASK

  • Look up your city's grocery-tax vote
  • Put it in your calendar
  • Text one neighbor the number

Sources