Illinois Lawmakers Propose 75 Percent Income Tax Hike

With all the excitement yesterday, this little blurb I read on the Drudge Report was probably missed by everyone. It seems that Illinois, which is dead broke, has decided that instead fixing the structural issues with their budget, they’re just going to slam the taxpayers again. They are proposing to raise the income tax by 75% and then lower it to 3.25% in four years. If you believe that, I have a large lake I want to sell you.

The story, from the local CBS affiliate ((CBS Chicago)), give all the wonderful details of this and other taxes the professional criminal calls of Illinois plan to foist on the people.

Gov. Pat Quinn and the leaders of both houses of the Illinois General Assembly have agreed on raising the state income tax.

If the bill passes, the plan would raise the personal income tax rate from the current 3 percent to 5.25 percent. That’s a 75 percent increase. In real dollars, that would mean if you currently owe $1,000 in taxes, next year you would owe $1,750. The increase is for four years. After that, the personal income tax would go down to 3.75 percent.

Yeah sure it would! To continue:

The Democratic leaders in the Illinois General Assembly believe this income tax increase, a corporate tax hike, and a $1-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes would erase the state’s $15 billion budget deficit.

Bwhahahahaha!

Sorry, but this is one of the most corrupt and incompetently run states in the Union. Once that money starts coming in, these clowns will spend like there’s no tomorrow. In other words, they will continue on as they always have.

Now, the pols are saying “No! We have learned our lesson. We’re just going to use this money to fix all the things we broke in the first place! We promise!”

As I said before, if you believe this I have a lake to sell you. Here’s what the politicians are claiming:

The Democratic leaders in the Illinois General Assembly believe this income tax increase, a corporate tax hike, and a $1-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes would erase the state’s $15 billion budget deficit.

This assumes that people won’t change the way they do things to avoid paying the taxes. Let’s take a detailed look at this assumption, shall we?

First the $1 per pack increase on cigarettes. This has NEVER worked. The smokers will either quit, (Which they should), or they will seek other ways to feed their habit, like going to another state and buying in bulk. There’s also the internet. It’s amazing what you can buy online these days and at a far cheaper price.

Next, is the corporate tax hike. First, corporations don’t pay taxes, they pass them along to their customers as rate hikes or price increases. This doesn’t make for happy customers. If the prices go to high, people stop buying the product. When they stop buying the product, the business isn’t making any money and can’t send taxes to the state. When this happens, total tax revenues go down.

Oops! That would mean that the state would be right back where they are now wouldn’t it? Dead broke and not paying their bills. Perhaps they have other ideas to fix the problems.

I want to emphasize that it is just an outline that we’re working with, and that we’re talking to our members about,” said Cullerton spokeswoman Rikeesha Phelon. “But we’re looking at, possibly, a quarter of a percent that would possibly go for permanent property tax relief. We’re looking at .5 percent of that going toward paying unpaid bills.

Imagine that! They’re putting a whole half a percent to paying off their overdue bills! How about putting the whole mess to paying off the bills and using that time to overhaul the state’s spending priorities? I suspect the citizens of Illinois might put up with a “temporary ((There is NO such thing as a temporary tax hike))” tax hike if the structural problems were fixed.

Let’s keep digging into the story and see if they politicians have any plans to do that, shall we?

“Democrats say they have no choice but to raise taxes as one part of a solution to Illinois’ massive budget crisis. The state deficit could reach $15 billion in the coming year. The government is borrowing money to cover some obligations, letting bills go unpaid for months and cutting corners everywhere from state prisons to state parks.”

Hmm, nope. I don’t see anything about cutting state payroll, closing state agencies, shutting down failed or duplicative projects and programs. I also don’t see anything about reforming the pension systems, which is one of the major budget busters for state governments, or reigning in the unions which have run amuck on the taxpayers nickel. I wonder why they aren’t talking about any of that?

“Rank-and-file legislators said Quinn ((Governor Pat Quinn)) described the tax plan to them earlier in the day and portrayed it as a deal among all three of the powerful Democrats.”

Ah! I see, they’re all Progressive Liberal Democrats, the same bunch of morons who got the state into the mess it’s in now. There answer to everything is massive tax hikes.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break it to you, but there well has run dry. The bottom of the barrel has been scraped. There’s no more money for you to loot. The taxpayers have had enough and since the Progressive, Liberal Democrats have pretty much rigged the system to prevent real change, the people are voting with their feet. In other words, they are leaving in droves. In fairly short order, the major businesses will also pull up stakes and move to friendlier business climates.

In a year or three, Illinois will be right back where they are now, trying to figure out how to get more blood from a stone. The problem will be, the stones will have rolled away. Until they start making real cuts in the size of the state, county and local governments, nothing will change and things will continue to get worse.

Already there are discussions on what will happen if a state goes bankrupt. There have been some comments that if states like Illinois, California or New York fail and go bankrupt, they should have their statehood revoked, made into territories and have a governor-general appointed from the federal level to clean up the mess. There is no known mechanism in the constitution to do this. In fact, no one ever thought what might happen if a state did fail. Well, it looks like we may soon find out.

***UPDATE 1/12/2011****

I’ve updated and bumped this post back to the top.

Well the idiots did it.

Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday approved major personal and corporate income tax hikes to bring the state’s budget back from the financial abyss.

I anticipate the unemployment rate in Illinois is bout to get a lot higher as people and companies start pulling out as fast as they can.

Morons. They never learn.

~The Angry Webmaster~

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