NTUI President Jim Tobin appeared on Fox Chicago News yesterday to discuss the income tax increase, and how it will cause businesses to flee and jobs to be lost, so that government workers can continue to line their pockets with lavish pensions. You can see the video here:
CRYSTAL LAKE–A new report by pension researcher Bill Zettler reveals that many McHenry County retired government employees receive lavish, gold-plated pensions that far exceed average annual wages of workers in the private sector.
“These government-employee pensions are bankrupting the state pension funds,” said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI). “Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) just raised the state personal income tax 67% to pump taxpayer dollars into the state’s floundering pension programs.”
Jim Tobin speaks about McHenry County’s sky-high pensions at McHenry County College on Wednesday, January 12, 2011.
CHICAGO—”The one-dollar-a-pack cigarette tax increase passed last year in the State Senate, S.B. 44, would raise the Illinois cigarette tax to $1.98 and fall most heavily on low-income and minority residents of Illinois,” said Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI), “and would be used to fund the gold-plated pensions of state politicians and state and local government employees.”
“High taxes on items such as cigarettes encourage people to shop across state lines where taxes are lower,” said Tobin, “placing Illinois at a competitive disadvantage to the surrounding states of Missouri ($ .17 tax), Kentucky ($ .60), Indiana ($ .99), and Iowa ($1.36).”
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