Daily Debunk: Nothing is perfect

But Fair Tax Amendment, supporters say, is key first step to solving many state problems

The Fair Tax Amendment gives the General Assembly in the Capitol a key tool to address the state’s fiscal problems — but, no, it doesn’t happen all in one fell swoop. (Wikimedia Commons/Teemu008)

By Ted Cox

During a debate last week on the Fair Tax Amendment, opponents threw anything they could at it.

It wouldn’t solve the state’s pension problems. It wouldn’t settle controversies over worker’s compensation. It made no concrete provision to cut property taxes. It offered no guarantees tax rates wouldn’t change down the road.

That is, they attacked everything but the basic facts, that the graduated income tax and the tax brackets approved by the General Assembly would raise an estimated $3.4 billion by increasing the tax rates just on those making more than $250,000, while 97 percent of Illinois taxpayers would pay the same or actually see taxes cut.

“There’s been a lot of noise and misinformation,” said Quentin Fulks, executive director of Vote Yes for Fairness, a group backing the Fair Tax with significant financial support from Gov. Pritzker. But he immediately added, is it fair that a grocery-store clerk pays the same tax rate as a billionaire? Is it fair that the state provides just a quarter of funding for public education, when it’s constitutionally required to be the “primary” funder for schools? “The Fair Tax is the next step we need to put our state back on track.”

“The opportunity before us in this election, to pass this referendum and create a Fair Tax, is the single most important thing that our state can do to improve our fiscal situation — the most important one,” said Daniel Biss, the former state senator and Democratic governor candidate who’s now running to be mayor of Evanston. He insisted that the current regressive flat tax rate, set at the same 4.95 percent for everybody, “is not flat, it is actually tilted in favor of the very wealthy against working families, the middle class, and the poor,” who end up paying a higher percentage of their income in regressive taxes than do people who are better off.

Biss echoed Fulks in saying, “This is not going to fix everything.” But he added that it would give the state the financing to begin paying adequately for education, with a property-tax break already included for those earning up to $250,000. “This is a moderate, modest bite,” Biss said. “Vote yes, and then wake up the next day and fight for those other things too.”

The additional funding raised would help pay down the pension backlog created by shell games both major parties indulged in through “pension holidays” that robbed payments to cover up budget shortfalls — shortfalls brought on by the flat tax and the way it acts as a drag on any sort of tax hike. And, as Pritzker said during his budget address earlier this year, repeated last week by Comptroller Susana Mendoza, it could also enable the state to begin restocking its Rainy Day Fund. It’s up to voters and the legislators they elect, Biss said, to follow through on those promises.

Anti-tax critics are basically taking the “perfect” side in the traditional argument that the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of the good.

“What we could do is take a positive step,” Biss added. “Let’s do the good thing, and then do other good things later.”

“We’re asking 3 percent of the state’s taxpayers to step up and pay a little bit more,” Fulks said. “We cannot continue to sit on our hands, simply because something isn’t perfect.”