East Central Reporter

Chris Miller takes exception with any plan calling for higher taxes, especially in the face of what he and others see as such wasteful government spending.

“I think it is totally disingenuous in this climate for anyone to be suggesting a tax hike,” Miller told the East Central Reporter. “The whole process needs to be revamped to alleviate all the shenanigans of (House Speaker) Mike Madigan and his mafia, which is always looking to extract more and more tax dollars out of citizens to pad their own pockets.”

A new Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) report details how the latest push to raise taxes comes at a time when state taxpayers are already saddled with a bill of roughly $100 million in wasteful government spending.

Shirley Bell

IPI identified line items like $13.1 million for an arts council chaired by Madigan’s wife and pork projects that include $10 million to rehabilitate Chicago’s privately owned Uptown Theatre.

The spending comes at a time when state taxpayers are already saddled with the second highest property tax rates in the country, and as residents pay one of the highest combined tax burdens in the country, including a 2.29 percent median property tax rate.

“It’s a double negative to even talk about the idea of raising taxes,” said Miller, running against Democrat Shirley Bell in the 110th District. “All of this will only increase outward migration of people and businesses.”

As it is, Illinois has now experienced four straight years of population decline and a recent Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois Springfield and NPR Illinois survey found more than half of residents across the state have considered leaving Illinois because of taxes.

“Abuse and corruption are a big part of the problem,” Miller said. “Higher tax dollars and irresponsible spending go hand and hand and Mike Madigan is the driving force behind it all. Nothing happens in Springfield without him signing off on it.”

IPI researchers report much of Illinois’ wasteful ways are stoked by structural problems that include lifetime health care guarantees for state workers and an unsustainable pension benefits system.

Over nearly the last two decades, spending on government workers pensions and employee health insurance have grown by an average of more than 400 percent, according to the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.

The statistics also show that state and local government account for an additional $97 million in frivolous spending, a figure that excludes school districts which make up one of the largest single items in the state budget.

“Part of the problem is there is too much self-interest and self-serving,” Miller said. “We now have politicians rather than statesmen, people out to serve themselves over providing public service. Lawmakers only concerned with re-election makes for an abusive time for taxpayers.”

The 110th House District includes Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Edgar and Lawrence counties.