Chicagoans would pay higher taxes for liquor and rides with Uber and Lyft, along with significantly higher garbage collection fees, under alternative budget options unveiled Wednesday that do not include Mayor Brandon Johnson’s rejected corporate head tax proposal.

A small group of City Council moderates and conservatives finally showed their hand in an effort to, as Finance Committee Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) put it, “re-set the budget button on so that we can look at options other than the one that the mayor has proposed.”

“We haven’t proposed a budget. We’ve proposed alternative options,” Dowell said.

After declaring her opposition to the head tax “at any level,” Dowell said she is determined to produce a budget that does not include “borrowing for operations” or scaling back pension pa

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