Media contact: Diana Rickert (312) 607-4977

SPRINGFIELD (July 3, 2017) – The Illinois Senate is expected to vote on a massive state income tax increase when it reconvenes at noon today. On July 2, the Illinois House voted to raise state income tax rate to 4.95 percent, up from the current rate of 3.75 percent. The tax increase now awaits Senate approval before it can advance to the governor’s desk.

Lawmakers claim the tax increase offers a path out of the state’s multi-year budget impasse. However, the tax increase and budget plan fail to address Illinois’ real problem: decades of out-of-control spending and high taxes. The tax increase is wildly unpopular with the public, and does nothing to address the state’s growing backlog of unpaid bills. It fails to enact spending reform or tackle in a meaningful way the state’s pension crisis.

Experts from the Illinois Policy Institute are available in Springfield and Chicago to discuss why Illinois should balance its budget without tax increases, and how it can go about doing so.

WHO:
In Springfield
Kristina Rasmussen, president and chief operating officer

In Chicago
Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy
Michael Lucci, vice president of policy

WHEN:
The Illinois Senate is scheduled to reconvene at noon today.

TALKING POINTS:

• Tax hikes have been tried in Illinois before. They’ve inevitably failed because they don’t fix the core problems of too much debt and too much spending. In fact, they allow such reckless behavior to continue. Taxpayers need to put Illinois’ government on a diet, not the other way around.
• The Illinois Policy Institute has created a calculator to help families figure out how much the tax increase will cost them. It is available here: illin.is/taxcalculator
• Illinois homeowners already pay the highest property taxes in the U.S., and the highest overall tax burden in the U.S. according to WalletHub.
• Despite all this, the Illinois House of Representative, under the leadership of House Speaker Mike Madigan, passed a budget that will raise the state income tax by $5 billion a year, or $1,125 per household.
• Illinois’ economy is too weak for a tax hike. In fact, Illinois’ economic growth from 2007-2016 was weaker than the economic growth during the weakest period of America’s Great Depression, from 1930-1939.
• Weak economic growth has resulted in Illinois having the nation’s highest black unemployment rate and second-highest youth unemployment rate. Illinois has the worst recovery of manufacturing jobs in the Midwest, and the worst recovery of single-family housing starts in the U.S. Finally, the Land of Lincoln still has fewer jobs than it did in the year 2000.