Daily Debunk: 'Starve the beast'

State gov’t is not an animal, but a wide-ranging, complex service that needs to be maintained to do its job for the people

A view of the Mississippi River and the onetime double bridge (the old one is now gone) between Savanna and Sebula, Iowa, as seen from Mississippi Palisades State Park, one of the key state resources deserving of more funding. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

It comes up again and again. Do you trust government? Do you trust legislators, politicians? Do you trust them with your money?

Well, that depends. What exactly are you getting in return?

A corrupt system that only knows how to waste revenue? Or a well-functioning dynamo that serves the people and provides them the resources to better themselves?

At One Illinois, we pride ourselves as being advocates of good government. By turns, that means we must not tolerate bad government. We’re going to throw a couple of bones to the anti-taxers here and insist that corruption leads to waste and must be rooted out wherever it exists in government, in any office. What’s more, Illinois government, across the state, is too big, too redundant, with too many government bodies at the state, municipal, county, and township level doing the same thing, or defining their little fiefdoms so narrowly that it amounts to the same thing and robs the overall system of efficiency.

We can and must address those concerns, like so many other pressing issues. But, as we’ve stated before, in saying that “nothing is perfect” and that everything can be worked out and refined, let’s all agree to settle down, roll up our sleeves, and do those things — right after passing a graduated income tax for the state of Illinois.

Conservatives don’t like that. To them, government is always growing and needs to be reined in. In terminology dating back to President Reagan, they want to “starve the beast.”

Only here’s the thing about that. Government is not a wild animal, but a social service created by the people to serve their needs. That’s been forgotten over the last 40 years, especially here in Illinois, as any sort of tax increase has been resisted, and government has been forced to live on reduced funding, with predictable consequences in public education, in roads and bridges, and in social services.

That austere approach reached its nadir under Gov. Rauner, who oversaw a two-year budget standoff with the General Assembly that crippled schools, public universities, elder care, public health. You name a service the government legitimately provides, and it suffered under Rauner.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has survived the pandemic better than it survived Gov. Rauner’s two-year budget impasse. (Twitter)

So let’s try a different approach. Let’s try giving this “beast” the sustenance it needs to actually serve the people.

Permit us to quote from our story on Gov. Pritzker’s first budget address, a year ago last February: “Pritzker rejected an approach that would only cut spending, saying that would result in slashing those programs 15 percent across the board. ‘This option was tried in the prior administration, and it failed,’ he said. He also rejected raising revenue only through taxes and fees under the current regressive tax structure, saying that would call for a 20 percent tax hike. Instead, he advocated what he called ‘a fair income tax,’ to ‘ask the wealthiest to pay just a little bit more,’ including himself.”

That’s the origin of the Fair Tax. Some 20 months later, Illinois voters can pass the Fair Tax Amendment, allowing the state to adopt a progressive income tax, with rates set so that anyone making up to $250,000 a year sees taxes cut or remain the same from the current 4.95 percent flat tax, while only those making more than that pay a slightly higher rate, up to just under 8 percent for those making $1 million a year.

That’s expected to raise an extra $3.4 billion, and what do the people of Illinois expect to receive in return?

Well, we’ve been beating the bushes on the internet for a while now in the Fair Tax debate, and we’ve stumbled on some interesting responses to that question.

A small-business owner named David Borris ran an op-ed piece in the Southern Illinoisan earlier this year, before the pandemic hit, stating right up front: “Full disclosure: There are years where I do not make over $250,000, but over the 35 years I’ve been a business owner, there are more years where I have. Paying more in taxes when you’re making more than $250,000 a year is a small price to pay when you consider the positive impact that $3.4 billion in additional revenue can have on helping the middle-class customers who frequent my business, and businesses like mine, all over the state.

“The additional revenue the Fair Tax will generate can go a long way toward making our state a better place for everyone to live and start a business,” he added, citing a more stable state fiscal environment (good for business) and a better education system to attract young families and create an informed customer base. Reliable infrastructure benefits businesses too.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there about the Fair Tax, and unfortunately there are some within the business community who are leading these false narratives,” Borris wrote. “But the fact remains that the Fair Tax will help all our residents, including the thousands of small businesses that make up the backbone of our communities.”

More recently, just this month, Mount Carroll couple Pat and Chuck Wemstrom wrote an op-ed in the Freeport Journal Standard. “Anti-tax people complain that the beauracracy is bloated and all Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Democrats have to do is practice so-called ‘fiscal responsibility,’” they stated. “Nonsense. For years, the state of Illinois has been cutting back.”

They specifically cite cuts to public universities, and then in a nice little rhetorical flourish they go on: “We won’t talk about how practically every rural town needs more state aid to help fund many local projects, from upgrades to the municipal water and sewer system, to the local library to local roads and bridges.

“We won’t talk about county and township roads and potholes. You’ve heard it all before. We all know the score and we’re losing.”

They also reveal their own preferences: “We love Starved Rock State Park and, closer to home, the Mississippi Palisades State Park. Everybody does. People are simply loving the parks to death, wearing them out. Illinois needs to put an end to deferred maintenance and spend the money to fix the parks, and Illinois needs thousands of acres of new parkland across the state.”

Remember how under Gov. Rauner state parks were closed because there wasn’t the staff or the funding to maintain them? That’s starving the beast.

It’s time, plain and simply, for another approach. Hold government accountable, by all means, but let’s give it the resources it needs to do its appointed job and see how that works out for a change.