Give government more money, they'll spend more

Melissa Meighen's article indicating we need to raise income taxes to make up for shortfalls in the state's budget sounds nice, but before we go supporting such an idea think about this: If you give any governmental body more money to spend whether it be state or federal, they will always find a way to spend it and more. If your household budget is in the red, it's because you are spending more than you take in. The same holds true with governmental bodies. This is simple math. We can see this happening in many states, especially California. There, a tremendous amount of the state's budget goes to support social welfare programs and retired state employee benefits, which are quite lucrative. Their state is literally on the verge of bankruptcy. The first thing any state needs to do is to learn how to balance it's budget. If we allow Illinois to raise the state income tax and then we find down the road that the state still has a shortfall, we haven't learned a thing. Our government cannot continue to spend more money than it has. It will only catch up with us sooner or later. For California, I fear it is the former.

Doug Wine

Naperville