Let's not spoil suburbs' 'wonder' with progressive tax
The suburbs were supposed to be the place of the American Dream, of upward mobility, high-quality schools and longtime neighbors who become lifelong friends.
The Daily Herald's Instagram feed frequently memorializes this time, and it's no wonder that those Throwback Thursday features - with images of lemonade stands in Elk Grove Village, gym classes at the old Arlington High School and couples ballroom dancing in Elgin - are incredibly popular with its followers.
This hunger for nostalgia exists, in part, because so much is changing, and slipping from suburban residents' grasps.
The Heartland Alliance, a leading anti-poverty organization, found that during the past decade, an equal share of the Chicago area's poor population was divided between the suburbs and the city. The organization's 2019 report found one-third of Illinoisans are considered poor or low-income, a number that's growing - particularly in the suburbs.
That number could only rise in the coming months, as bad forces converge. As the economic fallout from COVID-19 continues, a greater tax burden could soon be heaped onto the middle class and working poor, transforming suburban Cook, Kane, Lake, DuPage, McHenry and Will counties from neighborhoods of historic upward mobility to areas of economic freefall.
Ads interrupting your local nightly news programs and baseball playoff games in recent weeks have described a change from Illinois' current flat state income tax structure to a progressive tax as a matter of fairness, a change that will ultimately reduce the tax burden on the working poor and middle class.
But an examination of the plan shows it does the opposite, that the overall burden on all of us so-called "working stiffs" will be greater than ever.
The proposed constitutional amendment does nothing to lower Illinois' second-highest in the nation property taxes, where, in the Chicago area, property tax bills can take nearly one-third of the median household's income.
Despite rhetoric from Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker that a progressive income tax will provide property tax relief, the governor has signed no legislation to make this a reality.
Instead, a Property Tax Relief Task Force commissioned to identify potential paths toward property tax relief couldn't even come to a consensus, missing its deadline at the end of 2019 and all but dissolving amid disagreements over meaningful reforms.
On top of this, Illinois residents have been hit in the past two years with 20 new or higher taxes and fees, including doubling the gas tax and hiking vehicle registration fees by $50, leaving a typical suburban family to pay as much as $1,700 more in vehicle-related expenses after Pritzker's tax hikes.
The progressive income tax also introduces the prospect of local income taxes and a retirement tax, and kicking more than 100,000 small businesses while they're down.
This plan isn't about restoring fairness or equity. It's about helping politicians preserve spending as usual, using taxes as a way to avoid making tough decisions to fix the state's finances. It's about trusting people whose names keep appearing on federal corruption indictments with greater power to decide who gets taxed how much.
You and your neighbors deserve a shot at recovering from 2020. Tell state politicians "no," and keep the so-called "fair tax" out of your suburban back yard.
• Adam Schuster is the senior director of budget and tax research at the Illinois Policy Institute.