June 16, 2019
The (Champaign) News-Gazette
Pritzker hits tax road hard
One of the clichés of politics is that candidates campaign in poetry and govern in prose. That means they forget about a lot of what they said before being elected.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker promised during last year’s campaign that he was going to look out for the little guys, providing tax cuts for the middle class as well as those striving to join the middle class.
But that was then, and this is now.
If and when Pritzker signs all the bills passed in the final whirlwind days of the recent legislative session, he’ll have instituted 21 new taxes that will raise an estimated $4.7 billion a year.
Most of that new revenue will be paid by middle-income earners for a very simple reason - middle-income earners vastly outnumber those at the high and low ends of the income scale. Just as the infamous bank robber Willie Sutton explained that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is,” Pritzker is tapping the largest segment of taxpayers because that’s where the money is.
Pritzker’s list of tax increases is impressive. It would have been even more impressive if the Legislature had not rejected other tax hikes he proposed. They include the 5-cent statewide tax on plastic bags (estimated revenue ranging from $19 million to $23 million), a statewide $1-per-ride fee on ride-hailing services ($214 million), a 7 percent tax on streaming services like Netflix ($150 million) and higher taxes on beer, wine and liquor ($120 million).
At the same time, the Legislature adopted tax increases that Pritzker did not propose. They include a $100 increase in vehicle-registration fees for large trucks, a higher sales tax for remote online retailers, a new sales tax for the online marketplace and higher taxes on slot-machine gambling.
Pritzker needs the additional revenue to pay for his $40.6 billion budget that takes effect July 1. But this taxing orgy is bigger than that.
Illinois residents are paying, at least in part, for years of fiscal mismanagement that has reduced the state to effective bankruptcy - budget deficits, underfunded pensions, unpaid bills.
The state now routinely uses borrowed money to pay a portion of its debts.
Does anyone care?
Taxpayers appear confused, bewildered or largely unaware of the tawdry details. Our elected officials seem content to preside over this epic financial disaster if their questionable maneuvers can get them past the next election.
Meanwhile, Pritzker is hoping to pass a progressive-income-tax amendment in the November 2020 election that will give him and legislators the authority to raise income tax revenues by imposing multiple tax rates on rising levels of income. He promises to only tax the rich. But he said that before, and it’s pretty clear he was less than forthright.
What’s striking about all this taxation and planned taxation is that:
- It comes in the face of no policy changes that would eliminate programs or reduce the cost of government.
- It doesn’t raise nearly enough revenue to pay for Pritzker’s ambitious spending plans.
What’s equally clear is, under the current governor and Legislature, the state is politically committed to an ambitious, hugely costly expansion of state government. What Illinois saw in this last legislative session represents a good start to the Pritzker agenda but unfortunately barely scratches the surface of what he wants to levy in taxes and spend on government programs.
So what’s past has become prologue.
Illinois has refused for years to put its financial house in order. Now it’s doubling down on that approach, seemingly intent on spending its way out of debt and into prosperity.
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June 14, 2019
The (Freeport) Journal Standard
Real fathers need to step up to create a better world
The world needs more men like William Jackson Smart.
Smart, a Civil War veteran who died in 1919, was the inspiration for Father’s Day. Smart raised his daughter, Sonora, and her five brothers after his wife died during child birth.
Sonora, who married John Bruce Dodd in 1909, is considered to be the mother of Father’s Day. The idea to honor her father - and all fathers - came while she was listening to a sermon about Mother’s Day. She thought both parents deserved a day.
Because of her activism, the first Father’s Day was celebrated June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, her hometown.
Congress resisted efforts to make it a national holiday in the early 20th century, fearing it would become too commercialized. President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 issued the first presidential proclamation designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. President Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
It’s a nice story and there are many men like Smart: single fathers who take care of their children. However, there are far too many biological fathers who abandon their children shortly after conception. More than one in four children in the U.S. lives in a home without a father, according to the U.S. census.
About half the births in the country are to unwed mothers. Winnebago and Boone counties are similar in that about half of the births also are to unwed mothers. It’s worse in Stephenson County, where 61 percent of births are to unwed mothers.
The Census Bureau also reports that among children of the “postwar generation,” 87.7 percent grew up with two biological parents who were married to each other. Today only 68.1 percent will spend their entire childhood in an intact family. Where’s dad?
It becomes a vicious cycle. The majority of teen mothers come from homes without fathers.
Young children growing up without a father’s involvement are 10 times more likely to be extremely poor; 85 percent of all youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home; 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes, as are 71 percent of high school dropouts. Individuals from father-absent homes are 279 percent more likely to carry guns and deal drugs than peers living with their fathers.
Winnebago County has a high percentage of people living in poverty - 14.2 percent - and Stephenson County is worse at 16.7 percent. The National Fatherhood Initiative contends there’s a father factor in nearly all social ills facing America.
On the flip side, children whose fathers are involved in their education are more likely to get A’s at all grade levels, according to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics. They are twice as likely to go to college and find a job after high school. They also are less likely to have behavior problems in school and 80 percent less likely to spend time in jail.
Most people recognize the value of having a father, a positive male role model in the home. Fatherlessness is the most significant family or social problem facing America, say 72.2 percent of respondents in a poll by the National Center for Fathering.
So how do we get more men to become REAL fathers and not just sperm donors?
Locally, we have the Fatherhood Encouragement Project, which was established in 2015. The Fatherhood Encouragement Project is a peer mentoring-based organization in which men share their challenges and encourage one another to become better parents and individuals.
Nationally, there are advocates such as the National Center for Fathering; the National Fatherhood Initiative; WATCH D.O.G.S., a program that makes it easy for fathers (or father figures) to spend meaningful time with their children in a school setting; and Strong Fathers Strong Families.
One of our favorites is All Pro Dad, a program run by Family First, a nonprofit organization that promotes fatherhood and family.
Fatherlessness has been a growing problem, but the trend can be reversed with awareness, encouragement and activism.
“When we look at our country and see all of the gaps that need to be filled, we naturally look for help from places like government and schools. But if dads in our country would make a commitment to their children, not just financially, but also spiritually and physically - reading to them, hugging them and just loving them - if we could get fathers of America to commit to that, then I really believe that America could again reclaim its greatness,” Mike Singletary, a former Chicago Bear and an NFL Hall of Famer, told All Pro Dad in 2005.
William Jackson Smart probably would agree.
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June 12, 2019
(Arlington Heights) Daily Herald
’Pork’ and the matter of trust in Illinois spending
“Pork,” as in legislative largesse, isn’t always bad government, but it certainly can make a bad first impression.
Like $300,000 for dog parks. Or $250,000 to refurbish wood doors at the Evanston Historical Center.
Both of these “luxury” items show up amid hundreds of local-project earmarks in the six-year, $45 billion capital funding program the Illinois legislature passed last week, a program otherwise filled with vital public works projects for every corner of the state, including $400,000 to rebuild the Farnsworth Avenue Bridge in Aurora, $1.18 million to fix flooding at Interlaken Road in Libertyville and $137,500 to improve pedestrian signals at National Parkway and Higgins Road in Schaumburg.
In general, the capital budget doesn’t appear to be money spread around for patronage hiring. Rather, it seems mostly focused on building, fixing and enhancing projects that will benefit the public. But there is a fine line between expenditures that make sense even in dire financial times and ones that would stick out like a sore thumb at any time.
Are dog parks and historic doors terrible, useless projects? Not automatically. They just aren’t necessary. Nor do they do much to create jobs, unlike the infrastructure projects that will put money in Illinoisans’ pockets which in turn will get spent in their communities.
And at a time of great cynicism about the legislature’s commitment to a sound fiscal policy, they raise legitimate questions about whether lawmakers are willing or able to address the serious problems that still face Illinois — including pension debt soaring into the realm of $150 billion and beyond.
With all the new money expected to come into Illinois from new taxes and raised taxes, residents have a right to expect their government will behave with frugality — and will make tough choices today for a brighter future tomorrow. Slipping expensive amenities into a fat building program — like sneaking $1,600 raises for themselves into a state budget propped up by a host of new taxes — sends an ugly message.
It unnerves those who might otherwise be disposed to support lawmakers’ goals and justifies the complaints of cynics. It is counterproductive, and demeans and diminishes the larger objective.
Hidden niceties and political enticements don’t just squander money; they also squander trust, and with a fight looming over a constitutional amendment permitting a graduated income tax, lawmakers who support a change didn’t make a very persuasive opening case for themselves.
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