Jennifer Roberts

“I am currently a hospice chaplain. Before this, I worked as a social worker for the Family Self-Sufficiency Program at the local housing authority – a program that helps people in low-income families save, budget and get jobs.”

“I first saw an ad that said, ‘vote yes for the fair tax amendment’ and thought, ‘OK, that’s interesting. I should find out more about this amendment, so that I can understand what I’m voting on.’”

“Then a few days later, the blue pamphlet showed up from the state, that gave the actual wording of the amendment and the ballot language. And I was immediately very angry. I felt that I had been lied to. The actual wording of the amendment did not reflect anything from that ad.”

“The amendment just eliminates the requirement for a flat tax. The tax brackets and everything they’re talking about, or what the money would be spent on – none of that is guaranteed by the amendment.”

“They say ‘higher percentages on higher incomes’ but really it can be higher percentages on lower incomes, or higher percentages on middle incomes, or higher percentages on any incomes!”

“I’m frustrated by the push to get this amendment passed. I feel like the people who are behind this are really trying to scam the people of Illinois into passing this amendment with false information.”

“The wording on the ballot is not the actual wording of the amendment. It’s a little commercial about why you should vote ‘yes.’ It doesn’t give you the wording of what you’re really voting for.”

“I don’t understand how it’s legal to not give you the actual wording of the amendment [on the ballot]. If the people want this amendment, then they need to have some fair and honest dialogue about it – not all of this propaganda.”

“The amendment is a cop-out for the politicians in Springfield who have pushed our state into financial disaster. These financial problems have been going on for a long time. They weren’t caused by a lack of taxes; they were caused by mismanagement of our money by our politicians.”

“The thing about the flat tax is that when Springfield wants to change taxes, they have to change taxes on everybody – they have to answer to the entire voting public. With this graduated tax, they could sneak in tax raises by doing them a little bit at a time on different groups. Each group will get mad when it happens to them, but because they’re not doing it to everybody at once, then there won’t be as much of a public outcry.”

“There’s nothing in this amendment to make lawmakers take a serious look at what they’re doing with our finances and fix the policy problems that have led to Illinois being in the state that it’s in. Our politicians need to stop trying to tax us more and find real solutions to fix the budget, without making the people of Illinois pay for those mistakes.”

Jennifer Roberts
Hospice chaplain
Bloomington, Illinois