Trump may rethink cap on deductions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump again indicated this week that he might be open to revisiting the new limit on state and local tax deductions that hits many middle-income residents hard in California and other high-tax, Democratic states.
Legislative and political realities mean the $10,000 cap is unlikely to be scrapped or increased until after the 2020 elections at the earliest.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat and leader of the fight against the cap, this month called the new tax policy “an economic civil war that helps red states at the expense of blue states.”
Payless to shutter stores
Payless ShoeSource, a once-popular seller of inexpensive women’s footwear and a staple in many suburban shopping malls, is closing all of its American stores.
The company said Saturday that it would begin liquidating all 2,100 of its stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Payless also is winding down its online business.
The retailer, which filed for bankruptcy two years ago, had already closed hundreds of stores in recent years as its brand lost luster among women searching for deals on shoes. It is the latest mass-market retailer to vanish from the retail landscape.
Census privacy issues
WASHINGTON — A top Census Bureau official says an internal agency team found that basic personal information collected from more than 100 million Americans during the 2010 head count could be reconstructed from encrypted data — but with lots of mistakes.
So far, this privacy vulnerability has only been captured by internal hacking teams, and no outside groups are known to have grabbed data that’s supposed to be private for 72 years.
The agency’s chief scientist, John Abowd, tells a scientific conference in Washington that the data vulnerability potentially affects 138 million people.
Mayor candidates line up
CHICAGO — The race to succeed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has attracted a diverse group of candidates.
The election will take place Feb. 26. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will face off April 2. The candidates are: Lawyer Gery Chico, who has held the top position at several Chicago government agencies; William Daley, son of legendary mayor Richard J. Daley; Amara Enyia, director of a neighborhood chamber of commerce; Bob Fioretti, a civil rights lawyer and former two-term alderman; Lashawn Ford, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher and real estate developer; Jeremiah Joyce Jr., a lawyer and former state’s attorney; John Kozlar, a lawyer who has made two failed efforts for a seat on city council.
Lori Lightfoot, a former assistant U.S. attorney and former Chicago police board president; Garry McCarthy, the former superintendent of the Chicago Police Department who was fired after a video of Laquan McDonald’s slaying was released; Susana Mendoza, who spent 10 years in the Illinois House of Representatives; Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board of Commissioners president; Neal Sales-Griffin, a political novice who teaches at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago; Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools and School District of Philadelphia CEO; and Willie Wilson, owner of a medical supply company.