In the movie, nightclub owner Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, reproaches Signor Ferrari, played by Sidney Greenstreet, for always withholding a percentage of Rick’s liquor shipment.
Smiling, the sly, rotund Ferrari responds, “Carrying charges, my boy, carrying charges.”
The new state budget, approved July 6, casts the Illinois Department of Revenue in the role of the cagey Ferrari.
In the role of Rick are local governmental officials who wonder why 2 percent of certain local sales tax dollars, collected by the Department of Revenue, are suddenly being withheld.
Why, it’s simple.
Carrying charges, my boy, carrying charges.
In this case, those new “carrying charges” were authorized by Illinois lawmakers, mainly Democrats, who overrode Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of the state budget. Read the rest of the Sauk Valley Media Editorial.