Hosey: Explosive way for tax revenue to skyrocket

If you happened to be in Minooka on the Fourth of July, there was no need to move an inch if you wanted to watch fireworks. They were exploding all around well into the night, the kind of stuff you’d expect to see at a professional show.

And it wasn’t just Minooka. The night sky above Joliet was ablaze as well. Colorful streaks lit the town and even arced over Interstate 80. If Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers didn’t frighten you with their preposterous signs about the I-80 bridge, maybe the aerial display around it on the Fourth of July would be enough to scare you away.

There must have been tens of thousands of dollars burning up in fireworks on the Fourth of July in Joliet alone. And the shame of it was all that money was spent not just outside of town, but beyond the borders of the state. To make matters worse, the cash most likely ended up in Indiana, of all places.

It was bad enough when the mayor of Hammond came around looking for millions of dollars to let Joliet get its water from Lake Michigan instead of its inadequate aquifer, but they’ve been taking our fireworks money for all this time as well.

The city did decide to pass on Indiana and get at the lake without leaving state, but the project is still expected to run somewhere between $592 million and $810 million and will wind up tripling everybody’s water bills. Or will it?

The city missed the boat this Fourth of July but it has the next one and maybe seven or eight more before the aquifer runs dry. That’s plenty of time to build up a reserve to pay for the new Lake Michigan water system. All the city council has to do is figure out a way to legalize the sale of fireworks.

It only makes sense to allow the sale of fireworks, at least here in Joliet. After all, it’s not like the police are stopping anyone from shooting them off, not if City Councilwoman Jan Quillman can be believed.

“I mean, this was the worst it has ever, ever been,” Quillman said at a council meeting two days after the Fourth.

“And it was not firecrackers or M-80s,” she said. “It was dynamite and I don’t know what. Because I can’t tell you the amount of phone calls that I received. And I even called our police department at one point because it got really insane. And, you know, I realize there’s nothing they can do.”

No, there’s nothing the police or politicians can do about fireworks, except legalize and tax them to pay for our water.

If the government can profit off gambling, alcohol and marijuana, why not fireworks as well? In fact, in an effort to streamline the process of taxing the public, all these products could be housed under one roof.

The city has nearly realized this plan, clearing the way for Joliet’s gas stations to both sell alcohol and operate video gambling machines. Councilman Larry Hug expressed reservations about this, telling the council, “I will not support anything that allows people to stand there and drink at a gas pump, in a gas station.” But just imagine how efficient it would be to not only sell alcohol and run gambling machines at gas stations, but to also peddle fireworks and pot.

Picture the crowds around the gas pumps, swilling beer and playing the machines as they smoke marijuana and light off fireworks, while all the tax revenue rolls in like water.

• Joe Hosey is the editor of The Herald-News. You can reach him at 815-280-4094, at jhosey@shawmedia.com or on Twitter @JoeHosey.