This Thursday House Speaker Michael Madigan has scheduled a vote on a regional sales tax hike to stave off the Chicago Transit Authority’s overblown “doomsday scenario” of rate hikes and service cuts to pay for cost overruns and chronic mismanagement.

After facing down tax increase threat after tax increase threat, Republicans now have the opportunity to save taxpayers from $435 million in regional sales tax hikes and the real estate transfer tax. If they don’t, they’ll risk undermining the progress they’ve made re-building the anti-tax brand image of the Republican Party.

It hasn’t been easy being a Republican legislator in the Chicago suburbs these past few weeks. And this week promises to be particularly tough as every editorial page editor, reporter, and anyone any way connected to mass transit will be all over Republicans to abandon House Republican Leader Tom Cross and an electorate wanting the line held against new taxes.

It’s been a good year for the Republican minority on the tax front this year. Like in Michigan, by standing unified against taxes Republicans have helped split the Democratic Party. It surely helps having a Governor Blagojevich bungle away the tax issue which he used so effectively against the GOP gubernatorial nominee just last year. But nonetheless, when Republicans said no to the now infamous GRT, when they said no to sales tax hikes, no to health care payroll taxes, and no to income tax hike proposals, the writing was pretty much on the wall for higher taxes this year.

This was a year in which natural revenue growth amounted to 8% more than last year without hiking any taxes. If Democrats wanted to hike taxes, they were on their own. And that’s where they should stay.

For the last thirty years, the Illinois Republicans could be counted upon to give bi-partisan cover to Democrats to hike taxes. Yet, if the Republicans are to rise from the ash heap of Illinois history, they need the tax issue to define themselves. Mayor Daley, Cook County President Stroger, Senate President Jones, Speaker Madigan and the Governor have all been too happy to try and ram some form of tax increase through. Republicans now have an opportunity to distinguish themselves and offer voters an alternative that is both good policy and good politics.

Yet, the pressure being brought to bear on the suburban Republicans is impressive. Crain’s reported yesterday that Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan even pulled out the “It’s for the children” argument to hike regional sales taxes to pay for the CTA. Obviously, to avoid being the bad guys – and to make Republicans the bad guys – the Chicago politicians are reaching into every trick in their bag this Halloween.

It seems the city’s politicians don’t want to be held accountable for hiking fares and making the people who actually use the CTA pay for it. Commuters who use the CTA make up a mere 3.6% of the market. Yet, Chicago wants others to suffer the costs, because suburbanites can’t hold city officials responsible for the sad state of affairs the CTA got itself into.

That public school students – the children – should be used as props to support these tax hikes is particularly galling given the safety record and mismanagement of the CTA. Just last month the National Transportation Board was highly critical of the CTA over last year’s Blue Line derailment in which 150 people were sent to the hospital. The children will probably safer without the routes.

Instead of hiking taxes, there should be a general push to reform the system. More accountability and maybe a little competition – or even the credible threat of such – can help ratchet down some costs. Bailing out Chicago politicians shouldn’t be the Republican agenda nor should rewarding mismanagement.

With a 3/5ths supermajority needed to pass this sales tax hike and real estate transfer tax—taxes that will do real harm to businesses and individuals in Chicagoland—Republicans have a chance to implement some good policy and good politics by saying no. If Democrats still have the desire to hike taxes, they are in the majority and can do so next year – which is only eight weeks away.

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When Greg Blankenship isn’t writing for the Chicago Daily Observer, he is President of the Illinois Policy Institute. You can reach him at greg@illinoispolicyinstitute.