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Chicago — It’s that time of year again: when trees are aflame with fall colors, football is in full swing, the little goblins are blissfully anticipating the thought of mountains of candy, and…the government cabal is again reaching for your wallet!
Rather than cut spending to meet the existing revenue, hundreds of government agencies are expecting voters to approve measures that will steal even more of our hard-earned money.
In these difficult economic times, government school bureaucrats are seeking bond issues of gargantuan proportions to build new schools, athletic facilities, and other non-educational expenditures.
These bonds and the interest on the principle are paid by raising your property taxes.
Champaign Community Unit School District #4 is seeking an unbelievable $183.4 million in bond debt for building enhancements, additions, and even a new building. This is their third bite at the apple as referenda for $144 Million and $149 million have failed in the most recent elections.
If that isn’t bad enough, the Village of Round Lake Park is seeking a bond issue approval of $5.4 million to reduce the amount of unfunded pension liabilities for the police. Borrowing money to pay a debt is much like paying one credit card with another. This practice can lead to nothing but trouble for the taxpayers of Round Lake Park.
Overall, there are 218 tax-increase, advisory, and other miscellaneous referenda on the ballot for the general election on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.
Please check the list at the link below to see if you will be facing any of these referenda on your ballot. We need to send a loud and clear message to the government bureaucrats that we have had enough!
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 General Election Referenda
Taxpayers United has been fighting for taxpayers for over forty years. We have saved taxpayers billions of their hard-earned dollars by helping to defeat 420 local property tax increases since our founding in 1976.
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Chicago — Susana Mendoza, current Chicago City Clerk and Democratic candidate for Illinois Comptroller, is claiming to be a taxpayer watchdog on the campaign trail, but as a six-term state representative, her record proves otherwise.
“Former state representative Susana Mendoza has said that she is a taxpayer watchdog, and she continues to tell taxpayers that her record proves it, but if Mendoza was politically savvy, she would run away from her voting record of tax increases while in the Illinois legislature,” said Jim Tobin, president of Taxpayers United of America (TUA).
Mendoza was elected in 2000 as the youngest member of the 92nd Illinois General Assembly and she represented the 1st District for six terms until 2011.
“Despite her claim of being a ‘taxpayer watchdog, who believes in rooting out waste,’ Mendoza’s legislative record is an abysmal failure representing the hard-working taxpayers of Illinois. Her votes in Springfield equal more than a decade of voting against the interests of taxpayers and property owners in Illinois. Mendoza cast her votes for escalating debt and tax hikes, not to protect taxpayers,” said Tobin.
Since 1983, TUA has compiled a biennial tax survey to rate the voting records of the Illinois General Assembly based on their fidelity to taxpayers and support for tax relief. Mendoza failed each of the six tax surveys conducted during her time in office. She began and ended her time in Springfield with a solid rating of zero, having voted against the interests of taxpayers on every vote featured in both tax surveys for the 92nd and 97th Illinois General Assembly sessions. She never earned a rating above 25% while in office.
Compare Mendoza’s record to that of her self-admitted mentor, longtime Illinois Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan, who has failed every one of TUA’s tax surveys. Madigan’s highest rating stands at a pathetic 40%, which still beats her record, although he has received a score of 0% five times since 1983, including on TUA’s latest survey of the 98th Illinois General Assembly.
“Mendoza can’t claim to be a taxpayer watchdog while also hailing Chicago alderman Ed Burke and Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan as her political mentors,” said Tobin.
“The fact is, Susana Mendoza did not stand up for taxpayers while in Springfield for more than a decade, and there’s no reason to believe that would change today if elected as Illinois Comptroller. She voted for SB 2505 in January 2011, the historic lame-duck session’s 67% income tax increase. During her last term in office, she even missed an important vote on SB 3314 for property tax relief. That legislation came as a direct result of TUA’s lawsuits holding government schools accountable for deceiving voters by understating proposed tax increases by 300%. Her voting record is solidly against the taxpayers of Illinois.”
“If Susana Mendoza can’t take the time to vote on behalf of taxpayers in Springfield, and her record disproves the myth that she’s a taxpayer watchdog,” concluded Tobin, “then voters can’t trust her to take on a job as fiscally important as Illinois Comptroller.”
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.
