Illinois Policy Institute experts available for interviews
Media contact: Diana Rickert, media@illinoispolicy.org or (312) 607-4977
SPRINGFIELD (July 2, 2017) – The Illinois House of Representatives is expected to vote today on a revenue package for the state budget. But like so many proposals before it, this package won’t fix the state’s deteriorating finances.
The revenue plan would raise income taxes on Illinoisans to generate $5 billion a year. The current proposal permanently increases the personal income tax rate to 4.95 percent from the current 3.75 percent. Yet, no components of the plan address the real cause of Illinois’ fiscal crisis – reducing the growth of state spending.
Experts from the Illinois Policy Institute are available in Springfield and Chicago for interviews.
WHO:
Springfield
Diana Rickert, vice president of communications
Chicago
John Tillman, CEO of Illinois Policy Institute
Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy
WHEN:
The Illinois House is scheduled to reconvene at 2 p.m. today.
TALKING POINTS:
- Tax hikes have been tried in Illinois before. They’ve inevitably failed because they don’t fix the core problems of too much debt and too much spending. In fact, they allow such reckless behavior to continue. Taxpayers need to put Illinois’ government on a diet, not the other way around.
- Illinois homeowners already pay the highest property taxes in the U.S., and the highest overall tax burden in the U.S. according to WalletHub.
- Despite all this, Gov. Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Mike Madigan appear united in their call to raise the state income tax by $5 billion a year, or $1,125 per household.
- Neither the GOP budget proposal nor the Democratic budget plan dramatically reform spending – the real cause of Illinois’ fiscal problems.
- In fact, if the GOP budget plan backed by Gov. Rauner is implemented, the state will be deficit spending again by 2020.
- Illinois’ economy is too weak for a tax hike. In fact, Illinois’ economic growth from 2007-2016 was weaker than the economic growth during the weakest period of America’s Great Depression, from 1930-1939.
- Weak economic growth has resulted in Illinois having the nation’s highest black unemployment rate and second-highest youth unemployment rate. Illinois has the worst recovery of manufacturing jobs in the Midwest, and the worst recovery of single-family housing starts in the U.S. Finally, the Land of Lincoln still has fewer jobs than it did in the year 2000.