North Cook News

Cook County Board Commissioner Sean Morrison sees Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s dogged push to enact his progressive tax plan as just the latest attempt to feed the beast.

“Democrats keep pushing this because they want money to cover all their spending sprees,” Morrison told the North Cook News. “We have the largest government employee base in the country, and they have to feed the monster. The only way to do that is to continue taxing all the nongovernment families of the state.”

Despite Pritzker’s continued insistence that the tax plan he has been promoting since his days as a candidate will mean higher taxes only for the state’s most affluent, Morrison said every detail about the plan speaks otherwise.

“I don’t think anything about the plan the government is selling us is genuine,” he said. “I think it’s all a Trojan horse, where we’re being given a false narrative of this being fair and something that won’t impact the middle class.”

As further justification for his position, Morrison points to a new Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) analysis that concludes that if the tax were enacted, it would effectively wipe out all of the 45,000 jobs the state gained in 2019 and then some.

Overall, IPI pegs the projected loss at 56,399 jobs and, on a per capita basis adjusted to take into account the number of employed residents, Cook County would lose more than 43,000 jobs and maybe more, given there is more industry concentrated in the city than in other areas of the state.

“There’s just not enough money to generate the revenue they need without taxing the middle class,” he said. “Even they can’t really believe all the stuff that they’re saying that disputes that position.”

Voters will finally have their say in November when they go to the polls to vote on the question of whether the state constitution should be amended to allow lawmakers the power to enact a progressive tax system.

“I’m reminding everyone to be mindful that Democrats in this state do not have a good history when it comes to finances,” Morrison said. “So why would we allow them the ability to raise the taxes of the citizens of Illinois at will?”