Watch for trickery by lawmakers

Our country and state are headed in the wrong direction in terms of jobs and the economy. We all know that our leadership is failing us, yet we re-elect incumbents 95 percent of the time.

The problem is that many elected officials have become very good at getting elected and prolonging their careers through trickery. A case in point is the introduction of HB 3793.

In response to voters’ complaints over decreasing property values and steady or increasing property taxes (yes, candidates do listen to what people think is important), the bill forbids the taxing bodies that make up that tax bill from raising their levy in a depressed housing market. Imagine, our Springfield lawmakers think that other local taxing bodies should be limited to how much they can raise your taxes, yet they can justify raising our income taxes last year by 67 percent!

The governor will never sign a bill that takes money from education, police, and fire protection, and lawmakers know it. This bill is designed to simply give cover in an election year to those who voted to raise your income tax last year. They’ll trick you into thinking that they’re working to keep your taxes low, when in fact it’s all smoke and mirrors designed to keep them in office.

Before you vote for your state senator or state representative, do some homework. Find out if they voted for last year’s massive tax increase, and if they did (and even worse if they support HB 3793 to trick you!), vote the other way regardless of party affiliation.

Keith Gray

Mettawa