Protecting Your Tax Dollars

After a decade battling unnecessary tax increases and wasteful spending, Commissioner Quigley has earned his reputation as a fiscal watchdog. Year after year, budget after budget, he not only identifies questionable expenditures, unrealistic revenue projections, and no-bid contracts, but also proposes alternative solutions to the County’s financial and management problems. Most significantly, Mike has authored eight extensive, detailed reports examining important public policy issues facing the County and Forest Preserve District. All have earned widespread praise from taxpayers, civic groups, and local media.

For Cook County, Mike has repeatedly recommended significant reinvention of the County’s outdated structure, proposed cost-cutting measures and non-tax revenue sources, and urged privatization and joint purchasing where appropriate.

Mike also consistently votes against tax increases. He made waves in 2000 when he was the only Democrat to vote against an increase in the County’s parking tax, but that was the first of many votes against higher taxes. In 2002, helped to prevent a proposed lease tax and sales tax increase in 2004, and was one of the loudest voices opposing the 1 percent sales tax increase enacted by the County Board and Stroger administration in 2008.

What others are saying...

"He's brought to Capitol Hill the same sort of damn-the-consequences, into-the-boards style he first displayed as an amateur hockey player and later translated into political terms as a reform member of the Cook County Board... In Washington-a place that relies on tradition and connections even more than Chicago does-Mr. Quigley has been his hard-hitting self."

-Greg Hinz, Crain's Chicago Business Journal, March 8, 2010

" U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., made his reputation in Chicago politics as the guy who wouldn't go along to get along. As a Cook County Board Member, he got in the face of regular Democrats. He spent a decade in that office championing reform, battling the corruption and cronyism that plagues Cook county government."

-Editorial, Chicago Tribune, October 29, 2009

" A pleasant change of pace for Chicago's 5th district. Congress needs more people like Quigley."

-Editorial, Peoria Journal-Star, November 9, 2009