Vomit Tax
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the health care mandate is a tax. Chicago now has another tax - the cab vomit tax.
I'm told that when a cab driver gets a call late on a Friday or Saturday night, there's a pretty good chance the passenger will be drunk. An unlucky cab drivers could get stuck with a customer who pukes all over the cab. Prior to the cab vomit tax, if a customer up-chucked the cab driver was powerless to charge the passenger for the cleanup.
But now Chicago's city council signed off on a regulation that allows cab drivers to charge a $50 cleanup fee to passengers who puke in their cab.
Interestingly, cab drivers had originally lobbied for a $75 fee, but the city council thought $50 should be enough to clean up a cab. Chicago was one of the first U.S. cities to consider a cab vomit tax. Other cities include Austin, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia.