Your taxes: Rauner vs. Pritzker’s empty chair
Gov. Bruce Rauner scorns J.B. Pritzker’s call for a progressive income tax in Illinois. Pritzker, running to oust Rauner, evidently thinks last year’s 32 percent hike in the personal income tax rate doesn’t collect enough money from taxpayers. But Pritzker declined our 12 invitations to show up Friday and debate Rauner at the Tribune Editorial Board. Nor could Pritzker’s empty chair tell us how high Pritzker wants Illinois tax rates to rise, or how many more billions of dollars Pritzker wants to extract from taxpayers in 2019, in 2020, in 2021 ...
In a state whose high taxes already stifle job growth and drive an exodus of its citizens, a candidate who wants to rewrite the constitution so he can collect even more revenue owes voters his answers to those questions. Pritzker won’t do that. Instead he dodges and deflects, as if to say: You dislike Rauner, right? That’s all you need to know. Elect me and then I’ll divulge what I have planned for you.
A lot of people do dislike Rauner. Pollsters say Pritzker is leading this race. But we wonder if voters who claim to be fed up with fast-rising state and local taxes will let Pritzker stonewall until the polls close Nov. 6. A progressive tax scheme is all about taking more money from Illinois employers, often the same people who already pay some of America’s highest property and sales taxes. Rauner says progressive rates would aggravate Illinois’ punishment of the private sector and drive taxpayers elsewhere: “Turn out the lights. Disaster,” he told us Friday.
What, then, is Pritzker’s vision for Illinois’ economy if he makes those people and their companies also pay higher income taxes? Expatriates in the Illinois Exodus earn, on average, far more than this state’s new arrivals. That is, the expats have been making relatively high tax payments to Springfield and local governments. As they depart, who absorbs that tax burden? Those of us still here.
Amending the constitution to switch from flat to graduated tax rates requires voter approval. But lawmakers then could raise, and raise, the rates without asking those pesky citizens. The pressure from public employee unions and others who rely on state money to keep raising rates will be intense. Yet backers of progressive income tax rates typically try to assure voters that, at the outset, most of them would pay lower taxes. Honest, we’ll only squeeze the fat cats. You can trust us.
Do you believe that assurance? Do you think tax rates on working-class, middleclass and upper-middle-class households wouldn’t soon rise? And speaking of households: If Illinois again raises taxes, will the value of your home or condo rise or fall?
Under federal law effective this year, residents of lower-tax states won’t be so generously subsidizing high state and local taxes for Illinoisans who itemize deductions. Illinois taxpayers will more fully realize all they’re paying to state and local governments. Would Pritzker, the unions’ candidate, downsize the cost structure of Illinois governments?
We doubt it. Again, Pritzker wouldn’t come to answer questions. And in an exclusive interview, his empty chair had nothing to tell us.
If you’re an Illinois voter, maybe Pritzker could persuade you that progressive taxation will do more good by collecting more money than it would do harm by making Illinois a more expensive place to live or be an employer. But Pritzker wants your vote without saying how he would lift more billions from the private sector to spend on the public sector.
Pritzker’s stonewalling should be Topics A, B and C for voters who care about their, and their state’s, future. If you’re in a position to ask him questions, don’t let him duck and change the subject.
Chair, do you agree? Chair?