Republican state Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) thinks Gov. J.B. Pritzker is playing a dangerous game in relentlessly pushing his graduated income tax plan.
“All these tax-the-rich schemes are nothing more than playing class warfare,” Caulkins told Chambana Sun. “How about we stop finding ways to spend other people's money and become a responsible government? I’m a member of the Appropriations-General Service Committee that hears the budget requests of all small state agencies, and I can tell you not one of them has asked for less money in their budget this year. It’s like there’s no willingness or interest for stopping this spending terror.”
Pritzker’s plan would slap an additional tax on Illinois’ 20,000 or so most affluent households, amassing an estimated $3.4 billion in new annual revenues to be applied toward the state’s long-lingering budget deficit. At the same time, the tax is being sold as one that will actually lower the current flat tax rate of 4.95 percent for the roughly 97 percent of all other state residents, those in which the household income falls below $250,000.
Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur)
In Caulkins’ mind, all the tax talk is just more of the same kind of policy that has gotten the state in such a fiscal rut.
“The last two times we’ve had income tax increases they were sold to the public as ways to fix all our problems, and nothing happened other than we wound up in even more debt,” added Caulkins, who won the 101st District in November with nearly 70 percent of the vote. “Why trust anything to be different this time with all Springfield’s career politicians?”
To become law, Pritzker’s plan would require a constitutional amendment backed by three-fifths of the General Assembly and the support of at least 60 percent of voters in November 2020.
The 101st House District includes parts of Champaign, DeWitt, Macon, McLean and Piatt counties.
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