2020 will require clear vision for future
What kind of year will it be? From the presidential race and the fair tax to climate change and the U.S. Census, the decisions are ultimately up to us.
Thousands of students fill Chicago’s Federal Plaza for the Illinois Youth Climate Strike march in September. They’re sure to be back in 2020. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
The year 2020. The very number sounds epochal if not apocalyptic. How did no one ever write a sci-fi novel set in that year, like “1984” or “2001?”
Well, this drama is of our own making, and we’ll be making of it what we will. Because 2020 is already set up as a year of clear choices.
Do we live in a democracy or a dictatorship? In a world of truth or of lies? Do we want a progressive or a regressive state income tax? Are we content to continue on as we are in the face of climate change, or will we finally take action with the urgency Greta Thunberg suggests when she says, “Our house is on fire” — as it literally is right now in Australia.
It’s a critical, pivotal year ahead, and there’s no avoiding the choices that must be made. It’s an exciting time, but a time most of all requiring responsibility.
Because, unlike in those dystopian novels, no one is writing the story of the year ahead for us. We will determine what 2020 will be known for.
The presidential campaign will most likely be the focal point of the year ahead, after Trump survives his impeachment trial in the Senate on party lines (not to predict the news before it happens). We’ve already seen the impact elections can have — in both 2016 and again in 2018. The days when people bemoaned how politics has no meaning and the political parties are mirror images are over, perhaps never to return. Now comes what amounts to a plebiscite on President Trump. Along the way, Illinoisans will be choosing party candidates in the March primary, appropriately enough on St. Patrick’s Day. That includes a key role in selecting the Democratic standard bearer for president, but also choosing other candidates, both Republicans and Democrats, for the general election in the fall.
The top of the ballot will get the attention, and that includes not just the presidential race, but also the state referendum on whether the Illinois constitution should be amended to permit a graduated income tax, as sought by Gov. Pritzker.
The governor has already laid out the need for what he calls the “fair tax,” and he’s made the argument for common sense that people like him, who’ve been fortunate monetarily, should be the ones to pay a bit more rather than those struggling to make ends meet, whether that’s a college graduate paying off student loans or a family of four just trying to afford child care and diapers. Along with the General Assembly, he’s set tax brackets in which only the top 3 percent of earners, making more than $250,000 a year, will pay more.
But opposing forces are already lining up against the tax referendum. State Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady has already said in no uncertain terms that the fair tax “must be defeated.” Richard Guebert Jr., president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, echoed that at the organization’s annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month, saying the fair tax is “not the answer.”
But if it’s not, what is? If the well-off are not to pay a little more in taxes, who will? The answer, as Pritzker himself has pointed out, is everyone. Fair-tax opponents like to frighten voters by suggesting that a progressive tax on the rich will eventually be turned on the middle class as well, but if the fair-tax referendum should fail — and the requirement that it pass with a 60 percent majority to take effect is undeniably daunting — then it’s not an idle threat, but an absolute certainty that taxes will rise for everyone, from the current 4.95 percent to 5.95 percent, according to Pritzker’s best estimate.
Not all the important decisions this year involve elections. Illinoisans will also have to register for the 2020 U.S. Census, the once-a-decade head count that determines representation in Congress and targets much federal spending. Every resident of the state, no matter his, her, or their citizenship, should take part, but led by President Trump forces are already trying to intimidate people, by trying to add a citizenship question to the census — repeatedly knocked down as illegal by the courts — along with other tactics, including threatened raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Don’t be fooled by the scare tactics used against the progressive income tax, and don’t be fooled by the scare tactics used against participation in the census. Take part. It’s your duty as a responsible citizen.
Politics isn’t just engaged in at the ballot box, after all. Politics is also increasingly played out in the streets. The Women’s March is set to return to Chicago in January, on the 18th. Illinois Youth Climate Strike has also set its next protest for March 13, the Friday before the Illinois primary.
The impact those young people are having, in emulating Thunberg and responding to her call to action, is impressive. There’s no telling what other issues will send people into the streets (although it would appear Chicago is safe from another teacher strike for the time being).
That shouldn’t be seen as social chaos. In fact, it’s quite constructive. Protest is people trying to have an impact on issues and determine a direction for the future, just as voting is. Both require honesty and responsibility.
Our General Assembly has already voted to make cannabis legal as of midnight Tuesday, in what figures to be the biggest change from one day to the next. That decision was greeted as a revenue generator, of course, but it was also made with eyes open as the right thing to do — to expunge harsh criminal sentences passed out in the so-called War on Drugs, and to trust the state’s adults to handle legalization themselves.
That too requires responsibility.
What kind of year will it be? Will it be a time of chaos or of constructive change? Of hope and optimism or pessimism and despair?
We’ll be the ones who ultimately decide. The year 2020: it’s a time, appropriately enough, requiring clear vision. Let’s face it together with a shared sense of purpose, because we remain One Illinois.