House Defeats Unfair Income Tax Proposal

     Speaking in opposition, Ramey cited the inaccurate statistics surrounding the proposal.

     “The whole premise of letting 94 percent of the population vote on an issue that will affect 6 percent of the population is unjust and unfair,” Ramey said. “It sets a bad precedent to ask low and middle income earners to vote for a tax increase on only 107,000 of Illinois residents.”

     House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 42 was debated at length by legislators in the House before falling short of the 19 votes needed to send it to the Senate. The vote was 52 to 60.

     As part of the bill, $1 billion of the revenues were earmarked to be split between the schools and higher education; however, Ramey said there was no accountability that would guarantee the money would go to those areas of state government. In addition, it was unclear if the new funds would be in addition to the current fund or used to replace funds that were taken from another part of state spending.

     “We’ve seen the hidden ball trick before where new revenues are promised to increase a certain fund,” Ramey said. “But in the past, that logic has been a decoy to hide the fact that new revenues are being used to replenish funds that were taken out of the General Revenue Fund. We simply cannot trust how the taxpayer money will be spent and how residents will actually benefit.”