LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Posted January 25, 2018
Dear Editor:
The Illinois General Assembly is once again plotting to see how much more money they can steal from your wallets and your families in 2018. How exactly are they doing that?
Democrats in the General Assembly are once again pushing a tax on advertising, a move that has been met with strong opposition from the Illinois Press Association and its member publications since it was first introduced. If this bill were to ever pass, the end result would be disastrous as businesses would be discouraged from advertising on any medium, except online. As advertising revenues decline, it would result in the decline of smaller media groups who would ultimately be forced to sell to larger media groups. Unfortunately, even the large media groups won’t be immune and will have to shut down as well. If this tax is passed, it creates zero winners and tens of thousands of losers.
While the General Assembly voted for a 67 percent individual income tax hike from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent and a 46 percent corporate income tax hike from 5.25 percent to 7 percent, Democrats and a select few Republicans seeking re-election in 2018 are pushing for yet another tax hike. While it’s not disclosed as to what those rates would be, we believe they want to hike the individual income tax rate to 6 percent and the corporate income tax rate as high as 9 percent, something that is incredibly hostile to individual and corporate taxpayers.
There’s a plethora of other taxes being proposed, but there has been one which has been pushed by Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan since 2016 – a mileage tax. There are people who commute to work in Springfield, Decatur, Vandalia, Effingham, Mattoon, Charleston and St. Louis among others from anywhere within Christian, Montgomery and Shelby counties daily.
The proposed legislation would call for your vehicle to be “bugged” with a GPS tracking device and then you’re taxed on how many miles you drive in a given calendar year. That isn’t right, as no one should be penalized via additional taxes for commuting to work. Your freedoms should not be put at risk or endangered just because our state government finds it convenient to tax you for driving to work.
This is truly getting old. Whatever happened to fiscal responsibility? They used to teach that in our schools at one point in time, now most young adults can’t even balance a checkbook. They look at our politicians in Springfield and think, “If our state government and the politicians which represent the government can’t even be fiscally responsible and not spend more money than they take in, why should I?”
The Illinois General Assembly, especially Madigan and Cullerton, will stop at nothing to make sure the greater majority of Illinoisans are in poverty (or remains in poverty) as a result of excessively high taxation. Our property taxes are way too high. Our individual income taxes are way too high. We’re losing jobs to other states because our corporate income taxes are way too high. It’s wrong for them to keep taking more and more of your hard-earned money only to overspending on pork spending and worthless garbage.
Jake Leonard
Tri-Counties Libertarian Party
Nokomis, IL 62075
