Daily Debunk: The desperation stage

Billionaire Griffin spends $27M more to defeat Fair Tax Amendment, as IPI files 11th-hour nuisance suit

We’ve reached the desperation stage, where millionaires and billionaires will do almost anything to protect their money from a slightly higher tax rate to be imposed under what Gov. Pritzker calls the Fair Tax. (Shutterstock)

We’ve reached the desperation stage, where millionaires and billionaires will do almost anything to protect their money from a slightly higher tax rate to be imposed under what Gov. Pritzker calls the Fair Tax. (Shutterstock)

By Ted Cox

Today’s Daily Debunk is a simple warning.

We’ve entered the desperation stage as millionaires and billionaires fight against paying a slightly higher tax rate in Illinois.

With less than a month before voting ends Nov. 3 in the general election, billionaire Kenneth Griffin has contributed another $26.8 million to the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment. The coalition confirmed that in a filing with the Illinois State Board of Elections posted late last week. That’s on top of $20 million the Citadel Investments founder contributed to the coalition a month before.

That’s almost $47 million to fight the Fair Tax Amendment, a simple referendum at the top of the ballot allowing Illinois to implement a graduated income tax instead of the current flat tax mandated by the state constitution. In tax brackets set separately by the General Assembly, 97 percent of Illinois taxpayers would see taxes cut or pay the same rate, while only those making more than $250,000 would see a tax hike, up to a top rate of just under 8 percent for those making $1 million a year.

Daniel Biss, the former state senator and gubernatorial candidate who’s now running for mayor of Evanston, previously calculated that Griffin made the $20 million contribution because he stood to pay an extra $26 million under the proposed progressive income tax if it had been in effect in 2018. Griffin is now clearly looking at the impact a graduated income tax would have over multiple years.

Quentin Fulks, chairman of Vote Yes for Fairness, an organization fighting to pass what Gov. Pritzker has labeled the Fair Tax, responded to Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax with a statement saying: “With less than five weeks to go until Election Day, Ken Griffin is growing increasingly desperate to ensure he can keep the special deal he gets under our current tax system that allows him to pay the same tax rate as our essential workers. Mr. Griffin and his fellow opponents have already made clear they want to raise taxes on working families and retirees rather than pay their fair share.

“Mr. Griffin’s now spent more than he would have paid additionally last year under the Fair Tax in an attempt to defeat it,” Fulks added. “This may be nothing more than a calculation to him, but the future of our state is at stake. We remain committed to passing the Fair Tax in this election and giving a tax cut to 97 percent of Illinoisans.”

Now an Illinois taxpayer can see why Pritzker contributed $56.5 million of his own money to Vote Yes for Fairness just to make sure that the Fair Tax Amendment would get a fair hearing ahead of the general election this fall. But allow us to emphasize that Pritzker is paying that money in an attempt to raise his own taxes. As he said on the campaign trail while running for governor, it’s unfair that a billionaire should pay the same 4.95 percent flat tax rate as a middle-class or low-income worker just trying to make ends meet.

By contrast, if Griffin succeeds in convincing enough Illinois taxpayers to vote against their own self-interest, he’ll most likely break even on that $47 million investment before Pritzker faces reelection in two years.

And only a fool would say he doesn’t have a shot at it. Amending the state constitution requires a 60 percent supermajority — in the General Assembly, where it already achieved that last year, and in the Nov. 3 general election. If Griffin and the anti-tax coalition can confuse enough voters to keep the Fair Tax Amendment from getting 60 percent approval, it fails.

And that’s exactly what Griffin is doing on his own as well, repeating to Capitol Fax arguments we’ve already debunked here at One Illinois, such as that a progressive income tax will drive millionaires from the state (wrong) and that it will “inevitably” lead to tax increases on everyone else (wrong again).

But if Griffin can sew doubts or confusion in just 41 percent of voters with his $47 million, he wins.

Not content with that, the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative anti-tax organization going back to the administration of former Gov. Bruce Rauner and beyond, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court on Monday thoroughly muddying the waters. The 11th-hour lawsuit, filed against Secretary of State Jesse White and the state Board of Elections, challenges the language in the actual Fair Tax Amendment and the accompanying pamphlet that’s been prepared to explain it, and it asks that a new explanation be issued even as voting is already underway.

This is nothing new for the IPI. Its Chief Executive Officer John Tillman filed a suit last year trying to undermine bond deals that enabled the state to stabilize finances and pay down debt. If successful, that suit would have caused chaos in state financing and faced Illinois with possible bankruptcy. A Pritzker spokeswoman responded, “This lawsuit is not worth the paper it’s written on,” and Comptroller Susana Mendoza agreed, calling it “garbage.” Courts agreed as well and the suit was tossed, although it was revived by a three-person appeals court this summer in a ruling that stated: “We express no opinion on the merits of Tillman’s claims. We merely conclude for the purpose of this proceeding that Tillman should be permitted to file the complaint.”

In any case, where the Fair Tax Amendment is concerned, voters are already casting their ballots across the state, by mail and in early voting, with language already approved by the General Assembly and the Board of Elections. And, with the election underway and with less than a month before voting concludes Nov. 3, the IPI raises legal objections.

That’s not fooling anyone, least of all John Bouman, chairman of Vote Yes for Fair Tax, another organization backing the Fair Tax Amendment. “The wealthy few who benefit from the state's unfair tax system are desperate,” Bouman said in a statement issued later Monday. “They will do anything to prevent paying their fair share, even try to silence the voices of Illinois voters. The frivolous lawsuit filed by an extreme far-right front group is the latest example of their dirty tricks.

“The people of Illinois won't be denied their right to vote yes for a tax cut for everyone who makes less than $250,000, yes for new funding for schools and health care, and yes to make the very rich finally pay their fair share,” he added.

Illinois millionaires and billionaires will seemingly pay any amount of money and say anything in an attempt to undermine support for the Fair Tax Amendment, to muddy the waters and sew confusion. Illinois voters simply need to determine what’s fair from their own standpoint — make the rich pay their fair share, or maintain the regressive status quo that has helped undercut state finances for decades — and vote accordingly.