View as PDF CHICAGO—Although members of the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) reached a compromise late last week and approved a six-month stopgap budget for the state, some legislators are denouncing the deal, and taxpayers should, too.
“The stopgap budget plan was not agreed upon for the benefit of the majority of taxpayers and residents of Illinois,” said Jared Labell, Executive Director of Taxpayers United of America (TUA).
“This bipartisan compromise is merely another tactic for the majority of legislators to avoid blowback from decades of fiscal irresponsibility. Many of these politicians assume that they can continue to strike deals that continue to overspend, overtax, and overburden taxpayers without addressing the need for systemic reform of the Illinois state government and its 7,000 taxing districts.”
Four legislators, however, voted against the stopgap budget plan and discussed their position on the July 5 edition of Chicago Tonight: Reps. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), David McSweeney (R-Cary) and Thomas Morrison (R-Palatine).
“If you voted for that budget, get ready, because come January, maybe the end of December, you’re going to also have to feel obligated to vote for a $5 billion-plus tax increase. This budget wasn’t a budget. This budget was a spending plan that we can’t afford. Budgets set priorities and tell you what’s the most important thing you have to fund. All this vote did was set up a tax increase,” said Ives.
“Seventy-five percent of the budget is on autopilot. We’re going to increase the debt, we provided a package of bills – $625 million to CPS without any reforms, we increased education spending by $524 million – none of that money is required to reduce property taxes. We have the highest taxes in the country. I am going to fight tax increases. We do not need to raise taxes in this state, and they are going to raise taxes through the roof. That’s what the vote the other day was for, a vote for the stopgap was a vote for a massive, 30-percent increase to the income tax. I am going to fight that until my death,” said McSweeney.
Chicago and suburban Cook County taxpayers can empathize with these dissenting legislators as they receive their property tax bills, which will rise by a combined $838 million over the next few years for Chicago alone, and will exceed one billion dollars for suburban residents. This total includes the historically high $588 million property tax increase approved by the City Council last fall for Chicago police and firefighter pensions, as well as an additional $250 million for Chicago teacher pensions, which will not need City Council approval, thanks to the stopgap budget deal.
“People were pretty upset. They’re seeing some pretty big increases. In some cases, we’re talking 30 percent or 40 percent higher. In other cases doubling,” said Chicago Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd).
Other towns that could see massive property tax increases, according to the Daily Herald and data from Cook County Clerk David Orr, include Hoffman Estates (5.8%), Rolling Meadows (6.3%), Roselle (10.7%), Elgin (11%), and Wheeling (11.3%).
“Since TUA’s founding four decades ago, Jim Tobin’s name has been synonymous with talk of tax strikes and taxpayers revolts, and for good reason,” said Labell. “In 1977, Tobin, TUA’s founder and president, led the most successful property tax strike in modern Illinois history with a list of demands focused on the interests of taxpayers, not the political bosses in the state,” said Labell. “Nearly forty years later, Illinois taxpayers are once again facing rapidly increasing and onerous tax burdens without redress of grievances from their elected representatives.”
“When politicians are unwilling or unable to answer their constituents’ pleas for help, and rising property taxes threaten to bankrupt citizens, who ya gonna call? The Taxbusters at Taxpayers United of America,” concluded Labell.
Concerned taxpayers can contact Taxpayers United of America by email, info@taxpayersunited.org, or phone, (312) 427-5128 if they are interested in organizing public meetings or for further information.
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CHICAGO—Former Illinois Governor James R. Thompson, who in 1983 and 1989 engineered raising Illinois’ state personal and corporate income tax rates by 20 percent, will receive a generous increase to his lavish, gold-plated state pension on July 1, 2016, while Illinois residents on Social Security government pensions will see negligible increases to their own benefits next year.
Thompson’s annual pension as of 2016 is $147,477. On July 1, his annual cost-of-living increase of 3% will boost his annual government pension by $4,424.
Compare those figures to Social Security recipients, whose cost-of-living increase of two-tenths of one percent for 2017 was just recently announced. For those receiving a Social Security pension of $1,000 a month, that cost-of-living increase amounts to only $24 annually, or nearly one-hundred eight-five times less than that of Thompson.
“It is obscene that tax-raiser Thompson is pulling in millions of dollars from the essentially bankrupt state pension fund, while retirees on Social Security pensions, whose earnings were taxed to prop-up his state pension fund, must get by with an increase of $2 or $3 a month in 2017,” said Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United of America (TUA).
Under Thompson, the state personal income tax was raised from 2.5% to 3%, and the state corporate income tax to 7.3%, including the 2.5% personal property replacement-tax surcharge.
“This is an example of how corrupt the Illinois government is and has always been,” said Tobin. “Thompson, who retired at age 55, and who has contributed only $84,996 to his pension plan, already has collected $2.5 million to date, and his estimated lifetime pension payout is $3.38 million. He should be ashamed, Social Security pensioners and taxpayers alike should demand immediate reform.”
To understand the tax burden Illinois taxpayers face due to unfunded government pension liabilities, see TUA’s 10th Annual Illinois State Pensions Report.
CHICAGO- For over 45 years since its founding, Taxpayers United of America (TUA), a Chicago-based tax watchdog group has successfully fought taxes at the local, state, and federal levels, while championing the interests of taxpayers.
Founded in 1976 by economist and activist Jim Tobin while still employed as a bank examiner at the Chicago branch of the Federal Reserve, Tobin was disgusted by what he saw from the inside and left the government sector to work on behalf of taxpayers. TUA has since gone on to become one of the largest taxpayer organizations in America.
“I’d love to continue this work for as long as possible,” said TUA founder and president, Jim Tobin. “Our work is critically important now more than ever, and it’s incredibly rewarding to work on behalf of taxpayers and lessen the tax burden foisted upon them by politicians and governments.”
Since TUA’s founding, the taxpayer watchdog group has made an impact on tax policy in Illinois and across America. In 1977, Tobin led the first successful property tax strike in modern Illinois history. In the past four decades, TUA has been victorious in defeating 441 local tax-increase referenda, stopping state income tax hikes, and defeating every attempt to enact a graduated state income tax in Illinois since 1992. TUA’s leadership and members were instrumental in repealing the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, legislation that increased taxes on all senior citizens, which was the first time a major federal entitlement had ever been repealed.
All combined, TUA has saved local, state, and federal taxpayers more than $200 billion of their hard-earned money since 1976.
