State continues to have spending problem

Gov. Pat Quinn has vowed that the 67 percent increase in our income taxes will be made permanent - after the election. He, like all progressives, flogs conservatives for their unwillingness to support higher taxes that, supposedly, will improve all aspects of our lives. Those resisting ever-increasing taxation have valid reasons for doing so. Illinois takes more in state taxes from its citizens than 46 other states. Per capita, Illinois takes more from its citizens than our Midwestern neighbors: Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. Texas, which has 25 percent more people than Illinois, takes 33 percent less from its citizens (and is flourishing).

As others have said, Illinois doesn't have a tax revenue problem - it has a spending problem. Illinoisans are victims of decades of wild overspending by politicians seeking to buy votes, and engaging in pay-to-play, nepotism, political hires and other forms of corruption. Further, taxpayers are shackled by costly inefficiencies that result from our state having more units of government (about 8,000) than any other.

I know it's unfashionable, but reorganization must happen and cuts have to be made before the middle class is completely eliminated, before people refuse to come to our state to work, and before current residents cannot sell or keep their overtaxed homes. Whatever reservations one might have about the challengers, it is unlikely that they can do a poorer job in running this state than Mr. Quinn and the entrenched incumbents have.

That the Cubs never get any better doesn't hit us in the pocketbook, so we can live with that. But, it's time to put a new government team on the field and give them, and taxpayers, a chance. We can't afford to do otherwise.

Charles F. Falk

Schaumburg