Dear Illinois Conservatives,

Much has been said about Illinois counties seceding to Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa as of late. This will not fix your problem of high taxes. It also shows how ignorant you are of the history of this problem. This issue goes all the way back to Governor Thompson.

The tax issue in Illinois has been a problem for decades. It is a layered issue that has been exacerbated by Republican and Democratic governors who have been sold to the highest bidder (aka to rich business leaders.) Neoliberal governance has been practiced by both parties who have sold out the Illinois taxpayer in favor of “creating jobs,” and using the development to enrich themselves politically. Despite Thompson successfully rooting out corruption in Chicago this (il)legal corruption had already spread to Springfield in the name of Michael Madigan… but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first issue Illinois faces is the number of taxing bodies that use property taxes as their revenue source. There are 6,963 taxing bodies in Illinois. The most in any state. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-ranks-first-in-the-nation-in-number-of-local-taxing-bodies/ How does one eliminate this problem? Eliminate all township bodies and absorb those services into the county. Millions of dollars could be saved and subsequent infrastructure projects can be expanded to a larger populace spreading out the debt. Second, eliminate individual fire and library districts. Place these districts under the county or city umbrella. You still can have boards for any or all these taxing districts as a form of check and balance for expenditures and hiring. This would make the leader of each board responsible for working with the county boards in creating and advocating for budgets. Less governance in this case would lead to property tax relief by expanding the debt load to the county rather than the township or city.

The second issue Illinois faces is the Red state/Blue state problem. Everything Illinois does is based on population at the state level. Senators and Representatives are elected based on population. This enables the urban democratic areas to control congress. It leaves the rural area with a limited voice. Western Illinois is sometimes referred to as Forgottonia. The rest of downstate Illinois is a very red state. Fewer people equals less revenue per square mile of infrastructure, and fewer voices in Springfield. The more that leave the area, the more expensive the infrastructure becomes. Western, Eastern, and Southern Illinois (Carbondale) University suffers greatly from the location they sit in. Declining enrollment has affected their bottom line. I’m not discriminating here, but these Illinois Red counties receive more tax revenue from the state than they pay. https://www.farmweeknow.com/policy/state/state-tax-dollars-benefit-downstate-region-more-than-others/article_9207435a-ef0f-11eb-8280-ab69354d438c.html Suburban Chicago and Cook County essentially support the rest of the state from a tax revenue stream. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it is true. Seceding from your revenue source will not help you. Your taxes will remain the same essentially, because the taxing bodies of Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana will not give you the current level of state funding you receive from Illinois. You will see less money as these states collect less money in tax revenue. Billions less. Why shoot yourself in the foot?

The next part of the layered problem. Income taxes versus property taxes. Illinois property taxes have been a problem for decades. Many things have made this issue worse: Tax Increment Finance Districts (TIF’s,) Property tax rebates and other incentive give aways to multi-million/billion dollar business owners (Wrigley Field-Ricketts, Comiskey Park-Reinsdorf, and Soldier Field-McCaskey family all come to mind,) and the Fiscal Cliff that arrived when the baby boomers started retiring from their employ throughout the state ranks. TIF’s exempt property from paying fees and taxes related to redevelopment of “blighted” property. The loss of property tax revenue to redevelopment affects the city, county, and school taxing districts. Schools now receive the property tax revenue they would have lost, but due to population loss this revenue does not make up for the loss of tax payers. TIF’s also lead to infrastructure costs that are paid for by the city or county instead of the business. Residential TIF’s to bring affordable housing do not help the city or county as they think. User taxes rarely replace the property tax revenue when you factor in inflation and cost of living increases. Corporate give aways by Chicago hurt the entire state back in the late 90’s and 00’s. Boeing, United Airlines, and Caterpillar received all kinds of help from the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. The number of jobs promised, never materialized to replace the incentives. The recession of 2008 just exacerbated the issue.

I’m giving income taxes its own paragraph as Governor Jim Edgar had a tax plan that would have eased Illinois’ current issues. Unfortunately his own party shot it down. That would be the Republican party. In the 90’s Governor Edgar saw the pension cliff crisis and how the TIF developments would affect property tax revenue in a serious way. His plan would have capped property taxes and increased income taxes (spreading the debt to everyone rather than property owners.) This would have saved the state from its fiscal issues of the past 20 years. Unfortunately this plan was destroyed. Edgar refused to run again or endorse fellow Republicans. The common sense social policy of governor’s Thompson and Edgar was lost on the new generation of Republicans. It was also lost on the corporate Democrats who were ushering in neoliberalism as fast as the new generation Republicans wanted… Even worse those corporate Democrats were as corrupt as our current presidential administration. Illinois voters who don’t understand political trends, policy, or history are to blame for this mess. Complicity through ignorance got Illinois here… It also ushered in the current mess we are in nationally…

Why do I care? I was an Illinois resident until 2016. My job as a teacher was greatly affected by the turmoil of Illinois’ neoliberal political policy by both parties. I was downsized 14 times in 25 years of work in Illinois. Once the recession hit in 2008 the writing was on the wall for me that my days as an Illinois resident were numbered. I met Governor Edgar twice. He was genuine and selfless. I watched him treat my students with the delicate professionalism like a father or grandfather when they interviewed him for our town newspaper. Edgar’s education program “Project Success” led to my school district forming a cooperative with the town’s newspaper. Student reporters contributed articles to the paper and grant monies helped pay salary, transportation, and supplies for this to work. This was a work study program in a sense. It was a John Dewey learn by doing program. Edgar cared deeply about all of Illinois not just the rich players.

I have seen what Governor Pritzker has done over the past six years and he is making progress in digging the state out of decades of junk debt. I also know he is in a no win situation with impatient red county voters who are ignorant of their own participance within the issue. Governor’s Ryan, Blagojevich, Quinn, and Rauner did nothing but make the problem worse. Rauner’s inaction was especially troubling as he just watched the debt grow. He had the opportunity to fix the travesty of Ryan’s and Blagojevich’s corruption. Quinn was too busy allowing Mike Madigan to steer governance… Quinn was out of his league politically. This is the danger of allowing corporations and neoliberals to have unchecked reign within our government representation. The nation is now suffering the same way Illinois has. Corruption encompasses both parties as they have embraced this neoliberal status quo. It just happened faster in Illinois.

Solutions for Illinois. I have a lot to lose by suggesting this. In fact millions of Illinois service workers who invested in the TRS, IMRF, and SURS state retirement programs could be affected by this suggestion. If our retirement program could be saved or at least grandfathered into this suggestion I would support it unconditionally. Why? Illinois civic employees do not pay Social Security. Our SS Payment goes into a state pension system. This is billions of dollars at stake for many retired Illinois workers.

The suggestion is a constitutional convention. Illinois needs to broaden the representation of its congress. Representatives need to be based on population. Senate seats need to be based on land area. The rural downstate needs more of a voice to negotiate economic development within the state. Essentially I am suggesting an electoral college at the state level. Chicago and urban Illinois have always had a tight rein on Springfield. Their population and diversity have great political power. I support that, but what about the other Illinois residents? Despite receiving more money than they pay, the Northeast section of the state benefits more from the politics than the rest of the state. It does, and did feel like we were unimportant in the scheme of things (when I was a resident in Western Illinois.) I really think that one change would make a huge difference in checking and balancing the perceived corruption or equalizing the economic development for the rest of the state. It would definitely balance the voice of the rural with the urban. The Urban Northeast will always have an advantage with population and infrastructure. However, the rural and more urban Metro-east of St. Louis would benefit from just a little more attention economically.

I dissent with the seceding movement in Illinois. Your own political ignorance in creating the issues in Illinois are the problem. You are running away from solutions rather than lobbying to increase your presence in fixing the problem. Moving your county to Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, or even Kentucky for that matter will just make your situation more expensive. Yes, Iowa’s grass looks a little greener, but Iowa has plenty of issues with neoliberal governance right now. We too are seeing expenses rise as governance funnels our tax dollars into private enterprise. I’ll be blunt. Iowa is just like Illinois was in the late 90’s and 00’s. We haven’t faced the repercussions of our political ignorance yet, but it is coming very fast. This is why I believe in democratic socialism. I believe in the people much more than I believe in the business or neoliberal politician. It is time for you all to wake up and learn. Your simple mindset created the problem and the narrative. It is time for all of you to work with Pritzker. I really think he will listen to your concerns. He won’t listen to your extremism.

Sincerely,

MB