North Cook News

Palatine Township Republican Committee Chairman Aaron Del Mar wants every Illinois voter to understand what it would mean for the state to approve a measure on the November ballot to replace its flat income-tax structure with the progressive income tax favored by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic leaders.

“People need to understand things don’t stop with this bill,” Del Mar told the Prairie State Wire. “This would open the floodgates to tax Illinois residents over and over and ultimately will affect everyone. Talk of it just being a tax on the rich is subterfuge; they understand that not everyone will read what's actually being proposed and understand what the true implications are. We’re pushing everybody to get educated.”

With only nine months remaining until the November election, Del Mar knows there is little time to waste.

Palatine Township Republican Committee Chairman Aaron Del Mar | https://www.aarondelmar.com/

“We’re already taxing people out of this state,” he said. “And now by seeking to change the state constitution, we’d only be opening the door for other municipalities and villages to impose their own taxes. What happens when one day Chicago wants to create its own income tax? Based on the language of the bill, you don’t have to go modify the constitution to make other changes. After the initial change, the rest can be done by legislation.”

Del Mar concedes that deception and misinformation have been primary methods used by Pritzker and the state's Democratic majority since they began pushing the progressive or graduated tax more than a year ago.

“In the end, this will impact more middle-class people than rich ones,” Del Mar said. “Besides there not being enough so-called rich people to meet the threshold, there’s no definition of what 'rich' is. All we know for sure about this bill is that it will tax more people out of this state.”

Recent history assures as much, with similar bills in other states falling well short of their expectations. Revenues in California have been barely half of what was promised, and Connecticut has lost more than $10 billion and 360,000 jobs since switching to a progressive income-tax rate.