Gov of Illinois tries to tax the uber rich to help fund the state and it fails?!

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pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
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Please don't think I am putting this on you personally. I was more or less commenting on the situation. I recognized that you didn't make a personal statement of opinion there.
I did vote for the amendment and I am shocked that it did not pass. I think people want to see budget cuts before giving policymakers more money. There is also a lot of fear that the progressive tax structure could be modified in the future to target incomes below $250k. I was hopeful that J.B. would be a fresh face in government and work toward reform but thus far things have been moving quite slowly with him and I had hoped for more.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
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Please don't think I am putting this on you personally. I was more or less commenting on the situation. I recognized that you didn't make a personal statement of opinion there.

Actually, I'm going to take that back.

Moral of the story, our political system is corrupt as hell and no one believes raising taxes will actually lead to responsible use of new revenue, so people opposed it.
That is a statement of personal opinion. That are certainly other ways to interpret those same set of events, so you are biasing your telling to give a specific result. It might not be YOUR opinion, but it is an opinion.

Here is the things that bothers me about that solution, In the very same election that you claim that the people feel the political system is corrupt and they can't trust them to use tax monies those same people voted to keep every single incumbent that was running for the state senate, the ones that really control the pocketbook.
 

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
7,674
3,217
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Actually, I'm going to take that back.


That is a statement of personal opinion. That are certainly other ways to interpret those same set of events, so you are biasing your telling to give a specific result. It might not be YOUR opinion, but it is an opinion.

Here is the things that bothers me about that solution, In the very same election that you claim that the people feel the political system is corrupt and they can't trust them to use tax monies those same people voted to keep every single incumbent that was running for the state senate, the ones that really control the pocketbook.
If you know how to vote this guy out of office please let me know.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
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I did vote for the amendment and I am shocked that it did not pass. I think people want to see budget cuts before giving policymakers more money. There is also a lot of fear that the progressive tax structure could be modified in the future to target incomes below $250k. I was hopeful that J.B. would be a fresh face in government and work toward reform but thus far things have been moving quite slowly with him and I had hoped for more.
I think one of the things that always bother me is that the Governor does not really have that much say in the budget of a state. That is almost entirely the State Senate, but as I just pointed out none of them were held accountable for this, only the Governor is being held accountable. As long as that is true then nothing will ever change.
The voters simple don't pay enough attention to the real politics to make informed choices.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
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Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
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This is why I sometimes do not like posting in P&N. I will create a post saying what happened and people will just automatically assume my political persuasions based on what I wrote. My post was simply a recapitulation of the facts in the matter explaining why voters did not approve the fair tax amendment.

It's clear to most people that the state needs a combination of new revenue and cuts in order to become fiscally solvent. This starts with getting Michael Madigan, the longest serving state politician in the U.S. to step down. His leadership has been abysmal and one-party rule has resulted in significant corruption at all levels of government (remember Rod Blagojevich anyone?), state and local. The state also needs to consolidate its local governments in order to realize economies of scale. Illinois has more than 35% more units of government per capita than any other state (1), resulting in significant duplication of services and taxes. Nobody should be paying taxes to a lighting district, yet we had them all the way until 2016 (2). In the last decade the legislature has been extremely resistant to any change or attempt to consolidate local governments, despite the fact that all of these layers of government are draining peoples' pockets.

The only thing the state has done is ask for more taxpayer money to address budgetary shortfalls. There has been no consideration of structural reform or strategic budget cuts. These need to happen just as badly, if no moreso, than new revenue.
Seems like they should have written in austerity measures in the proposal somehow. Still even without it, it would have been in the best interest of almost everyone in the state to vote for it.

At the end of the day who won: billionaires.
 
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Nov 8, 2012
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Maybe because voters realize that a state/city that already has...
1) State income taax
2) One of the highest property taxes in the US
3) One of the top highest sales tax rates in the US (Chicago area is up to 10.25% last I recall)

Maybe higher taxation isn't working. Maybe that won't fix all the problems you have with shit infrastructure - ridiculously priced education with shit results - and overall bloated government.

Maybe... JUST MAYBE.... you should try some self-criticism instead of just continuing to always say "We will just tax them more. Suckers."

Maybe.... Tax revenue can actually go up - EVEN WITHOUT raising the rates... because instead of people LEAVING, they might want to stay instead of paying massive amounts of tax and then at the end of the day saying "Well what the FUCK am I getting out of this? Run down infrastructure? Protests/violence in the streets? Asshole government workers that don't change anything?"


1604750767809.png
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
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Before you ask for more taxes, you need to demonstrate that you can competently manage the taxes you’ve already been given.
 
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compcons

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2004
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Before you ask for more taxes, you need to demonstrate that you can competently manage the taxes you’ve already been given.
This is likely why it met opposition. Illinois lawmakers seem like the guys who racks up a huge amount of credit card debt then keeps asking relatives to lend him money so he can on vacation.

They also had a handy website you could use to check how the change would affect your taxes. I think plenty of people making $250k weren't too pleased to see taxes up $2000 a year. I think they could have garnered more support had the lower end of that bracket started somewhere in the $500-750k range. Plenty of people in Illinois make $250k without being millionaires.

Illinois politics are toxic. The Dems here are a lot like Republicans. Everyone is in lock step. It's similar to a president going for term 2, the party is not going support a challenger in a primary. Madigan for life (or Madigan for life if the investigation yields expected results). The Republicans don't offer better options. They are a shitshow and we would end up like Kansas. It would be nice if some responsible adults would clean up the pension problem, stop mis-allocating funds and sort shit out. The city and the suburbs are a ridiculous revenue machine, I can't believe that they can't fix this crap.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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Probably still paying off whatever scullduggary the Daley family and the Dem machine bills they ran up when the ran Chicago.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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Poor fiscal management in Illinois truly is a bothsides problem.
I moved to Chicago with the memory of the 68 Dem convention riots. Voted straight Republican first and only time. Republican Gov. Jim Thompson who I voted for, ended up in jail. It's friggin pathetic.
 
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dasherHampton

Platinum Member
Jan 19, 2018
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Poor fiscal management in Illinois truly is a bothsides problem.

A both sides problem? What does that mean?

It's not racial, for sure. I know a lot of asians who work for Caterpillar and quite a few Indians (not as many as I used to) who work for State Farm insurance.

Not ONE person I know voted for the progressive tax hike. EVERYONE I know is sick of progressive spend spend spend government. It's time for them to begin the process of fixing things. If there's short term pain so be it.
 

compcons

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2004
2,203
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A both sides problem? What does that mean?

It's not racial, for sure. I know a lot of asians who work for Caterpillar and quite a few Indians (not as many as I used to) who work for State Farm insurance.

Not ONE person I know voted for the progressive tax hike. EVERYONE I know is sick of progressive spend spend spend government. It's time for them to begin the process of fixing things. If there's short term pain so be it.
Democrats and Republicans have both dipped into the coffers to spend money over the last several decades. Lets not pretend that the Republicans are fiscally responsible anymore. We saw that at the federal level just a few short years ago. The Democrats happen to hold power in Illinois so they get to carry the blame right now (and they should). They are also too damned stupid to figure out how to fix it. Once Madigan is out, maybe we can get to some real governing and figure out how to fix this crap without blindly gutting programs and ending up in the craptopia Kansas put themselves into. Wisconsin was doing pretty well while still having great social programs. They were fine before Walker and his cronies rolled in and pissed away a $60M surplus while destroying unions.
 
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fleshconsumed

Diamond Member
Feb 21, 2002
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I live in IL and I will tell you why it failed.

Moral of the story, our political system is corrupt as hell and no one believes raising taxes will actually lead to responsible use of new revenue, so people opposed it.
I highly doubt that's why majority of the people voted against it.

As I'm sure you know IL has been flooded with ads/flyers fearmongering ballot measure saying 250K is just the beginning and that nothing stops democrats from lowering threshold in the future. Implication being that they can't raise taxes on everybody now which is not true. I'm firmly convinced most voters just gave into general fearmongering campaign and/or just wanted to give big FU to the state.

We really need to change political structure in US to allow more than 2 parties. Nothing is ever going to get fixed until that is done.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,222
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I highly doubt that's why majority of the people voted against it.

As I'm sure you know IL has been flooded with ads/flyers fearmongering ballot measure saying 250K is just the beginning and that nothing stops democrats from lowering threshold in the future. Implication being that they can't raise taxes on everybody now which is not true. I'm firmly convinced most voters just gave into general fearmongering campaign and/or just wanted to give big FU to the state.

We really need to change political structure in US to allow more than 2 parties. Nothing is ever going to get fixed until that is done.
At least not in that state. Too many people with their hands out, before anything happens, and I don't mean the people.
 
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pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
7,674
3,217
136
I highly doubt that's why majority of the people voted against it.

As I'm sure you know IL has been flooded with ads/flyers fearmongering ballot measure saying 250K is just the beginning and that nothing stops democrats from lowering threshold in the future. Implication being that they can't raise taxes on everybody now which is not true. I'm firmly convinced most voters just gave into general fearmongering campaign and/or just wanted to give big FU to the state.

We really need to change political structure in US to allow more than 2 parties. Nothing is ever going to get fixed until that is done.
How do you distinguish between fear and mistrust of elected officials?

This article suggests that trust was a huge issue. https://www.chicagotribune.com/poli...0201107-gu3ggsqhyrhihjpe5svs4szpty-story.html
 

Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
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Maybe because voters realize that a state/city that already has...
1) State income taax
2) One of the highest property taxes in the US
3) One of the top highest sales tax rates in the US (Chicago area is up to 10.25% last I recall)

Maybe higher taxation isn't working. Maybe that won't fix all the problems you have with shit infrastructure - ridiculously priced education with shit results - and overall bloated government.

Maybe... JUST MAYBE.... you should try some self-criticism instead of just continuing to always say "We will just tax them more. Suckers."

Maybe.... Tax revenue can actually go up - EVEN WITHOUT raising the rates... because instead of people LEAVING, they might want to stay instead of paying massive amounts of tax and then at the end of the day saying "Well what the FUCK am I getting out of this? Run down infrastructure? Protests/violence in the streets? Asshole government workers that don't change anything?"


View attachment 33213
It's actually much more simple. Taxes actually don't have that much to do with where people are choosing to live. When taxes are high, people get paid more and it all kind of balances out in general, though there are some exceptions (like San Francisco). For example, I lived in texas for a while and then moved to the NE to a super high tax state and then back to texas briefly and now live on the west coast. My quality of life actually didn't change with any of these moves. My pay would go up as state taxes went up and so my net pay was actually about the same or higher even in the high tax state. Groceries cost about the same, gas about the same. Really nothing changed net for net with the move as a renter in terms of the amount of money I had on hand or my expenses or take home pay. It was all kind of the same. The things I noticed quality of life wise were things like transportation and restaurant reservations and things like that (things were you compete with other people for the same stuff).

However, for most people who move for reasons not related to a specific immediate job (ie a forced mandatory job relocation) its housing prices (which are a surrogate for land/real estate prices) that drive people to voluntarily pack up and leave. The fun cities with outrageous housing prices see negative net migration. The fun cities with good housing prices see positive migration. That's the actual reason why phoenix and houston have been getting californians in mass. I know because I lived there and have spoken to californians who moved to these cities. They always say "the quality of life wasn't bad in california but they couldn't afford a big enough house to raise the type of family they wanted and so they moved". Even myself, the reason I left the NE wasn't the quality of life but purely the housing price issue. I couldn't afford a house close to where I wanted to work and it was probably the major factor in my decision.

If you look at oregon which has taxes in the top 5 nationwide I would think, people still want to move there because despite high taxes houses are actually quite affordable even in the metro areas. Also in houston, housing prices are definitely going up. There was a major shortage about 5 years ago where everyone was having massive bidding wars. Right now, they are still better than a lot of cities but not by much.
 
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JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
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I swear at some point, that F'd up state is going to have to do a New York city and declare bankruptcy and start over.
Unlike cities (ie: NYC and Detroit) , States can't declare bankruptcy.
No idea how IL is going to solve their huge budget shortfalls :eek:
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,077
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No idea how IL is going to solve their huge budget shortfalls :eek:

Eventually big cuts that will absolutely devastate anywhere that isn't Chicago or the collar counties.

Look, the political situation in IL is shit and has been for a long time under both parties. I know people think the Ds are bad but in my lifetime I can assure the Rs are just as hopelessly corrupt and useless. The other major factor is that much of downstate totally hates Chicago for irrational reasons even though the metro is who pays the bills. If downstate could vote to drop a ten megaton nuclear weapon on the city they would regardless of the consequences. It's simply beyond reason and the Republicans of late have continued to fuel that up for their own political purposes.

Eventually the old political class is going to have to die out for there to be real resolutions to real problems. Pritzker generally means well but the climate is just to toxic to get much done.
 
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DrunkenSano

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Aug 8, 2008
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Sounds like historically, the problem was voting in billionaires. As usual, it's not Democrat vs Republican, but Rich vs Poor. The rich will keep oppressing the poor to keep or increase their wealth.
 
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K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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Sounds like historically, the problem was voting in billionaires. As usual, it's not Democrat vs Republican, but Rich vs Poor. The rich will keep oppressing the poor to keep or increase their wealth.

Pritzker is the only billionaire elected to the governorship in IL and he proposed the amendment.

If you want to point fingers at some rich people try starting with Ken Griffin.