A MISLEADING PITCH FOR RAISING THE STATE INCOME TAX.

There's one state referendum in Illinois this November, to amend section 3 of article IX of the Illinois constitution.

The General Assembly shall provide by law for the rate or rates of any tax on or measured by income imposed by the State.  A tax on or measured by income shall be at a non-graduated rate.  At any one time there may be no more than one such tax imposed by the State for State purposes on individuals and one such tax imposed on corporations.  In any such tax imposed on corporations the highest rate shall not exceed the highest rate imposed on individuals by more than a ratio of 8 to 5.

The underlined text will replace the struck text, with the second sentence allowing for high levels of corporate income to be taxed at rates higher than the highest levels of personal income, with a graduated income tax replacing the current proportional tax.

The amendment is, as you would suspect, the brainchild of long-serving legislative speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) and current governor J. B. Pritzker (D-Chicago).

By law, the state shall issue an explanation of the referendum, with arguments for and against its adoption.  Among the explanations we see the following two paragraphs.

Because of the way our current tax system is set up, the bottom fifth of Illinois taxpayers (those making below $21,800) contribute 14.4% of their income to state and local taxes, compared to 7.4% for the top 1 percent of Illinois taxpayers.

If this Amendment passes, the State has already enacted a new graduated tax structure where 97% of taxpayers will pay the same or less.

Note the conjuring tricks, dear reader.   The first paragraph rolls state sales taxes (and Illinois is one of the few states that taxes food: if you buy cheese in Wisconsin to eat in Illinois, the treasurer wants you to declare it in April and pay the 1% use tax on it) and local sales and property taxes, which is to say, taxes long understood to be regressive, with the proportional state income tax.

The second tax refers to a proposed change in state tax rates that has been rubber-stamped out of the Springfield Soviet, er, the Democrat-controlled legislature, with the assent of the governor, and "pay the same or less" refers to the lower brackets of the graduated income tax.  There's no property tax relief, or lowering of the sales taxes, contemplated.

I suspect there is a strong overlap between people who intend to vote NO on this amendment and Trump voters.  We'll see what the effect on turnout is in another two months.