Daily Debunk: Endless austerity

Fair Tax opponents are arguing about everything but a graduated income tax in a bid to hogtie state gov’t

Joined by Eli’s Cheesecake President Marc Schulman, then-Gov. Rauner takes a knife to a State Capitol made of cheesecake at the Illinois bicentennial celebration two years ago. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

We’ve already made the argument that if billionaires like Kenneth Griffin are voting their pocketbooks — and spending from that pocketbook, as well, with millions in political contributions intended to sway the electorate and hold off higher taxes — everyone else should too.

With the Fair Tax Amendment on the ballot Tuesday set to clear the way for Illinois to adopt a graduated income tax, and with 97 percent of taxpayers projected to pay less in taxes overall, voters should vote their pocketbooks, especially as failure to pass the tax will almost certainly lead to higher taxes being imposed on everyone through the state’s current flat tax.

But Rich Miller of Capitol Fax asked a relevant question in his final Crain’s Chicago Business column ahead of the election: what is it Griffin really wants? Is it really just a matter of spending $54 million now so he doesn’t have to pay $45 million a year later? That’s what Quentin Fulks, executive director of Vote Yes for Fairness, has suggested.

But, in saying he was disappointed that the Citadel Investments founder hadn’t granted an interview to discuss his “endgame” in the campaign, Miller raised another valid point. “Griffin backed Gov. Bruce Rauner to the hilt,” Miller pointed out, citing Gov. Pritzker’s predecessor, voted out two years ago after a single term in office that saw the state go two full years without a budget. “Rauner’s plan was to create a massive crisis in order to force serious structural change. So, is Griffin now trying to create a new crisis by shutting off a revenue stream? Is this a way to starve the budget in order to force the Democratic-controlled General Assembly to address some sort of new pension reforms?”

Good question, and with the multibillionaire remaining mum on the matter Miller could only muse that “Griffin’s apparently willing to let the ads he’s paying for speak for themselves.”

But for an answer to that question, consider another final argument before the election: the Chicago Tribune editorial from Sunday, urging Illinoisans to “Vote No on the Pritzker Tax.”

Look at every argument the Trib Editorial Board makes against the Fair Tax Amendment. It doesn’t address pension reform. It doesn’t address property taxes. It doesn’t promise tax rates won’t be altered at any point in the future. It doesn’t impose term limits on elected officials. It doesn’t affect redistricting. It doesn’t address redundant government. Again with the pensions. And finally why are proponents spending so much to pass it if they don’t intend to use it to raise taxes even more?

Let’s call that last one a wash, because Griffin has spent almost exactly the same amount to defeat the Fair Tax Amendment as Pritzker has in funding Vote Yes for Fairness. We’ll point out that Pritzker, in marked contrast with Griffin, is actually investing from his own pocketbook to deplete it still further when the Fair Tax is passed, and leave it at that.

But otherwise, not a single argument against a graduated income tax or the brackets established by the General Assmbly. Nothing on the state simply adopting the same progressive tax system used by the federal government and 32 other states.

The Trib Editorial Board is likewise on the record as being generally against taxes and, therefore, against government spending. And, as we pointed out just last week, the best way to keep taxes from being raised at all is to maintain a flat tax rate so that everyone faces tax increases if anyone does.

It’s an attempt to double down on Rauner’s austerity agenda in the only way currently available: by stopping the state from drawing on additional revenue, via the common-sense proposal to raise taxes only on the top 3 percent of taxpayers making more than $250,000 a year, those with the ability to pay just a little bit more.

Let’s go straight to the ballot, for those yet to vote. The Fair Tax Amendment states right up front: “The proposed amendment grants the state authority to impose higher income-tax rates on higher income levels, which is how the federal government and a majority of other states do it.”

That’s it. Pensions, term limits, redistricting, property taxes, “promises,” “trust”: none of those is on the ballot. And bringing them up as a way to argue against Illinois adopting a graduated income tax is nothing but a way to muddy the waters on the issue at hand in an attempt to keep the Fair Tax Amendment from gathering the 60 percent supermajority required for final ratification in a basic change to the state constitution.

Should Illinois be able to tax the top earners at a slightly higher tax rate than everyone else, in a bid to make the tax system more fair and equitable? That’s all that’s on the ballot in the Fair Tax Amendment. Vote accordingly.