With few exceptions, Illinois voters stamped the status quo on November 3, meaning that when the General Assembly reunites next year, Democrats will continue to have super majorities in both chambers.
This begs the question: does the majority party in the State House and Senate deserve another two years to run Illinois and set the agenda for our state? What outstanding guidelines are being implemented that justify the status quo?
Illinois has the worst credit rating of any 50 states – just above junk status. Illinois has more than $ 137 billion in unfunded pension obligations and more than $ 7 billion in unpaid bills left behind. The budget, which went into effect earlier this year, was drawn up with the belief that voters would approve the governor’s progressive amendment to the state constitution through the income tax and that the federal government would be there with a nice bailout for Illinois.
Voters disapproved of the tax change, and the federal government has yet to put up stacks of cash for states like Illinois. The end result is a massive budget hole that could reach as much as $ 10 billion.
As we speak, Governor JB Pritzker and the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are working to raise taxes to fill the budget gap, and there are media experts standing up and cheering. It won’t be long before speakers tell us that it is our patriotic duty to accept even more tax increases in Illinois because we cannot solve the budget crisis by cutting alone.
Of course we’ve heard this nonsense before. We heard about it in 2011 when income taxes were rising. We heard about it in 2017 when state income taxes rose again. And we’ve heard it over the past two years when the governor tried to sell his progressive income tax system.
The harsh reality in Illinois is that taxes have risen steadily, and what have our mediocre heads of state done with the money? You guessed it: you found more ways to spend it. Every budget Pritzker signed has increased spending by $ 2 billion.
We have done nothing to reform or reduce government spending. We haven’t done anything to get the pension costs under control. All our leaders have done is spend more money and then turn around and tell us that this is our fault. Illinois is in ruins because we no longer want to pay taxes.
Illinois has the second highest property tax rates in the nation. We have the third highest gas tax in the country. WalletHub ranks Illinois as the state with the ninth highest tax burden in the nation – even higher than California.
The status quo leaders in the House and Senate reflexively ask which budget items should be cut each time people like me come up with reforms. Well, here is a question for establishment politicians: what remains to be taxed since our tax rates are already among the highest in the nation?
Illinois’s economic troubles are not the fault of the hardworking men and women of that state. You are the fault of mediocre leaders who drove this state into the ground. Our so-called leaders have failed miserably.
You failed to be responsible with people’s money. Our governor signed a bill in the hopes that voters would approve of his progressive tax system. He approved expenses based on income that was not real. Budgeting based on fairy dust and unicorns is not the way to run a state of nearly 13 million people.
It is time for the people of Illinois to understand that we no longer have to settle for mediocrity. I will speak out against tax hikes in the coming legislature, and I urge every patriotic Illinois resident to join forces for fiscal sanity and against the career politicians who are ruining our state.
Chris Miller of Oakland is the Republican representative for the 110th Illinois House District, which includes all or part of Coles, Clark, Crawford, Cumberland, Edgar, and Lawrence counties.