Taxes are never really temporary

Taxes are never really temporary

I read with interest the recent story about how the state of Illinois and the DuPage Mayors Conference wants to make the temporary tax increase permanent. It seems like no matter how much we pay in taxes, government is never happy.

I laughed when our governor said it would be temporary, because I knew they would find a reason to make it permanent. It's just like they were going to remove the sales tax on food years ago and increase the sales tax on nonfood items. Well, we got the increase on the nonfood items but the sales tax was never removed from the food items, because it was discovered they couldn't afford to lose the revenue. It's nice to know that the people who are elected to office can sit there and constantly break their promises to the taxpayer.

The thing that makes me mad is the fact that the individual taxpayer ends up paying the tax increase while the businesses also get an increase, but get tax breaks. Tax breaks should be tied to hirings and layoffs. You hire so many workers, you get an additional tax break; you lay off workers, you lose a portion of your tax break. The state gives businesses a tax break and if they lay off workers, the business continues to get the tax break and if the state says something, the business just tells them that's tough.

I feel that making the 5 percent income tax permanent without increasing the tax rates on higher income would be unfair to the middle and lower class workers, especially since most workers have had little gains in income since the recession begin.

Stanley F. Jurczewski Jr.

Roselle