North Cook News

If Illinois were a business, it would be out of business, Dan Donnelly contends.

Donnelly, a Democrat who recently launched his campaign to replace Robert Martwick Sr. as Norwood Park Township committeeman, told the North Cook News that a gas tax hidden in the new state budget demanding more money from taxpayers is out of line.

“No private business could simply raise prices on consumers anytime they felt the need to,” he said. “There has to be a better and more efficient way of doing government. For anyone else, that would mean the end of their business, because people would just stop dealing with the headache.”

Dan Donnelly and family

Illinois gas prices are expected to rise by as much as 5 cents per gallon after the budget allowed the expiration of a 20-percent sales tax credit that was granted to wholesalers for unleaded gas mixed with ethanol.

In Chicago, gas prices are already 44 cents higher than the national average.

Overall, the new tax is expected to generate approximately $95 million for the state, though none of that money is earmarked for much-needed repairs to crumbling roads.

With the tax officially being considered a sales tax, the money will instead be deposited into the state's general fund.

“Taxpayers can’t afford another tax,” Donnelly said. “It’s hard enough as it is. Nowadays, you already have to have both parents in a household working just to have a chance at maintaining the home. People are absolutely taxed to the max.”

Donnelly said he gained a measure of encouragement in the way taxpayers recently came together to fight for the repeal of the Cook County penny-per-ounce sweetened beverage tax.

“I was against the soda tax 150 percent, and I knew people would come together against it,” he said. “No one in their right mind would back that tax – only people who had some sort of hidden agenda. All that talk about it being for health reasons was just that. That was a pure case of a money grab.”