What this bill simply does is remove a
mandate that we, in Illinois, have to have nongraduated rates
for income taxation. This is about giving voters a say -
allowing this to be put on the ballot for them to have a choice
whether or not they want to have this. And really what I think
happens, if they ultimately approve this, is we have tax
fairness. Right now, we have a very regressive system in
Illinois. And I’ve had people ask me, “Well, if it’s the same
rate for everyone, how can that be regressive?” Because our tax
structure includes consumption taxes and excise taxes that put a
greater burden on the lowest earning people in the State of
Illinois. What we have in Illinois: In recent years, the
poorest eighty percent of Illinois families faced tax
liabilities above the national average, while the wealthiest
twenty percent paid taxes well below the national average. And
that comes from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Illinois’ consumption tax structure is equivalent to an income
tax of 7.8-percent rate for the poor, a 4.7-percent rate for the
middle class, and a one-percent rate on the wealthiest Illinois
taxpayers.
We’ve seen a lot of changes in our economy in this
country and the State over the last thirty years. Since 1979,
the majority of growth that occurred in Illinois went to the
wealthiest ten percent of taxpayers. In 2005, the bottom forty
percent of income earners in Illinois actually took home less
money in adjusted-for-inflation dollars. I think this Body will
determine what those rates may or may not be. This Body may
determine to not change our tax system at all. But I believe
that the voters of the State of Illinois deserve the opportunity
to weigh in on this issue, which I think is ultimately an issue
of tax fairness. I know there’s a lot of disinformation out
there. I know there’ll be many questions. I would be happy to
attempt to answer them.
Then, after a lot of questions from Republican Senators who all opposed the amendment (and they are worth reading from pages 18-68 of the Journal of the Senate ), Senator Kwame Raoul made his statement (who worked closely with Senator Frerichs the entire time on the bill).
I first want to commend and thank President Jones for allowing
this -- this amendment to be debated. I want to also commend
Senator Frerichs for displaying the -- displaying the courage to
put this forth. And I -- I kind of just wish that courage was a
little bit contagious. Everybody in this Chamber knows that the
poor and the middle class is overburdened by our ever-increasing
consumption taxes and property taxes, and thereby creating an
overall tax structure that is unfair to the poor and the middle
class, that’s the majority of each and every one of our
districts. Everybody in this Chamber knows that. Nobody can
dispute that. People have said, “Well, will the people trust
us?” “Will the people trust us to act after this?” Well, guess
who gets to decide if we do this? The people get to decide.
This gets put to the people. Use your common sense. If the
people trust us, they will, with sixty percent of the vote,
approve this. If the people don’t trust us, they won’t. But,
obviously, you all don’t trust the people to make that judgment.
I’ve often heard over the last three and a half years of how the
decisions we make will chase people into the states of -- like
Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin. Guess what? In Missouri, Iowa,
Wisconsin, they have a progressive income tax structure. Guess
what? Since 1913, our federal income tax has been progressive.
Apparently we thought it fair on the federal level for almost a
hundred years. If you sense frustration, I have been a little
frustrated. You know, over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying
to promote this and I’ve spoken to most of you and I thank all
of you all on both sides of the aisle for having the
conversation with me. I’m really thankful. I’m -- I’m
particularly thankful to Senator Righter, who gave us input as
to how we can improve this. And what we’ve done with this is
we’ve made it neutral. We’re neither endorsing, with the
language of this, a progressive, flat or regressive tax. I’ll
concede that I prefer a progressive tax. But with the language
of this, we’re saying neither. And there was a Senator who
spoke earlier who said, you know, he’s not sure which one is
fair, whether it’s a flat or a progressive tax. He’s not sure.
In that we’re not sure which is fair, why should we be mandated
to have a flat tax, if we’re not sure? If we lift this -- I
don’t care to what extent you use Karl Rove-type politics and
say this is an income tax increase, no matter how many times you
say it, it does not make it the truth. You all know the truth.
The truth is that this is not an income tax increase. If you
can read, and everybody in this Chamber can, and the people who
would vote for this can, they know that this is not an income
tax increase. And it’s not as if this is some magic pill that
could enable us to put forth an income tax increase. We can put
that forth right now. There’s a pending bill right now.
There’s been a bill in every General Assembly that I’ve
participated in, and there’s probably been one for years and
years prior to that, proposing an income tax increase. So this
doesn’t turn the key to allow all the sudden for people to
introduce an income tax increase. We’ve been doing that year
after year after year. And perhaps the reason it hasn’t
advanced is, because if we do it, it further increases the
burden on the middle class and the low-income population in our
State. You know, I -- I -- I recently went before the Tribune
editorial board to discuss graduated tax and was bombarded with
questions on recall. And I thought it was unfair, but I
answered each and every question with regards to recall and
explained why I was opposed to the recall, because I believed it
was bad public policy because already people are afraid of the
shadow of their next election. And we’re -- we’re afraid to
make decisions in this Chamber and the Chamber across on the
other side, because we’re afraid of the shadow of our next
election. And we throw recall in the mix, we’ll never get
anything done and we’ll never confront the fact that low-income
people and moderate-income people pay overwhelming percentage of
their income towards public services. Perhaps we don’t confront
that because they don’t have a lobby. They don’t have
aggressive, well-paid lobbyists, and perhaps that’s all who we
want to listen to down here. Not me. I ask you all to do
what’s right by the majority of the people in this State that
pay taxes. I ask you to lift this unfair mandate that does not
change our current three-percent flat rate. We still would have
to present any sort of bill, whether it’s, as Senator Murphy
might propose, a progressive tax cut. We could even propose
something regressive. But let’s move the obstacle out of the
way, the unfair obstacle out of the way. I agree with the
previous speaker that said, you know, we should be able to
debate which is right, whether it’s a flat tax, whether it’s a
progressive tax. We can’t do that right now because -- we can’t
really do that because we have a mandate that it’s a flat tax.
We have a mandate, and that’s wrong. Everybody in this room
knows that’s wrong. Finally, there’s been talk about the
previous bill that was presented in the House that put tax rates
in -- that would seek to put tax rates in the Constitution,
would seek to create a cliff at two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars. This does not do that. That bill, I think, only got
fifty-two, fifty-three votes. I would have voted against that
bill had that bill made it to this Chamber, because I’m not
interested in gouging the rich. I’m interested in tax fairness,
and I think if -- if we open our hearts, if we -- and allow some
courage to come in, we will -- we will do what we know is right
and lift the mandate of the flat tax. Thank you.
Then Senator Frerichs made his closing remarks.
We’ve had a lot of discussion on this. I’ll try and
be brief. One of my colleagues mentioned you should take some
time to read what delegates said before in 1970. I concur. I
think you should take time to read this, because it’s
interesting reading. There’s some really interesting
characters, interesting debate. But, quite frankly, this was
nearly thirty years ago and times have changed. You’ve seen
consumption taxes increase dramatically. You’ve seen property
taxes increase dramatically. We are living in a different time.
And I think, just like you shouldn’t ask a man to wear the same
coat he wore as a child, ‘cause he’s obviously grown out of it,
you shouldn’t ask us to be held in perpetuity. The founders of
the Constitution, the writers -- the framers of this
Constitution realized that this needs to be a living, breathing
document. They put an amendment process in place. They
believed the voters ought to have the opportunity to change
this. And what I’m asking you to do is to -- not to vote for a
tax increase, but to vote to remove this mandate - to vote to
allow the public, the citizens of this State, to have a voice,
to have some say in this issue. I know that this is a radical
concept in Illinois. There are obviously a lot of people scared
about what’s going to happen. I mean, I can’t answer all their
questions. I am not a tax expert. But I can say that at the
federal level - I mean, we’ve even heard that this is a -- a
killer on small business - we have had a graduated income tax at
the federal level for ninety-five years. Thirty-four other
states have progressive income taxes. I don’t think this
concept is radical. I think -- there are people who have talked
about how this administration can’t be trusted. We have had a
progressive income tax for ninety-five years in this country.
And in that time, we have gone through a great depression, we’ve
had a President assassinated, we’ve had a President impeached.
We’ve gone through plenty of turmoil in this country and this
country has not fallen apart. And it hasn’t fallen apart
because we are more than just our laws and our tax structure.
We are a fabric, a system of government in place and
relationships and families that make this a great country, that
allow people to earn great amounts of money through the sweat of
their brow and the might of their intellect. But those people
ought to be able share in funding the society in a similar
percentage as everyone else, as the people who have been dealt a
bad hand. And so that’s why I ask that you join me today in
voting Yes on this, to allow the people of Illinois to have a
say in amending their Constitution. Thank you.
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