Your property taxes pay for government workers’ guaranteed salaries, benefits and pensions while you get no such guarantees – Wirepoints on with Jeff Daly of WZUS Decatur Radio
April 18, 2024
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Ted joined Jeff Daly to discuss why Illinois’ property taxes are such a national outlier, why Illinoisans are forced to pay the high, guaranteed salaries, benefits and pensions of the government class, why Illinoisans aren’t getting their money’s worth for what they pay, the teachers unions’ influence over elections, and more.
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Basically, the real reason why states fail are the unions. I live in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia is experiencing financial problems. However, the mayor is cutting back on may programs and hopefully, the city will eventually have a balanced budget – despite the unions. I looked at some of the pensions obligations in Chicago. Some people collect over100K a year. Police in retirement collect over 50K a year. Absolutely nowhere in the private sector do you have pensions of that magnitude. Quite the contrary. Most private firms have eliminate or curtailed pensions in lieu of 401K plans. How can public unions… Read more »
The taxes in Vermont are far more brutal, and they haven’t lost people. All the blue states pay more taxes to the feds than the red states which take more back from the Feds than they put in. This is an indicator of the high level of economic activity in the blue states. I would want to see more proof that it is not retirement, where people take the money they never could have earned in the south and spend it where it is cheaper and warmer to live.
Fair points, but the main lessons are that people are leaving and they are taking lots of income with them.
Your article makes the common error of presenting correlation as causation. People have migrated from Illinois, that’s a fact. However, that does not prove it was because of taxes. In fact, Illinois is not a high tax state at all. Sure, some states have no income tax, but you can be sure they get their money in other ways. My daughter moved from Pittsburgh to rural Kentucky and expected to pay far less for auto insurance, as one example. Wrong! Kentucky charges multiple taxes on auto insurance and countless other services, as do many other states. You need real evidence… Read more »
You can never prove causation. But when the correlation is there and people are saying they are moving because of taxes, you get a pretty good idea. Illinois is now, after the 2011 tax increase, a high tax state according to analyses that count everything — property taxes, sales taxes and the rest. Rankings on all taxes from various sources are collected here: http://illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=6118
Oh, and love the new look. The content has always been awesome.
But people move for other reasons, right? Warm weather for retirees?
Yes, for sure. But look how clearly the migration is from high tax to low tax states, and combine that with how strongly people are saying they are moving for tax reasons. More importantly, while we could debate why they are moving, it’s undeniable that they are moving and taking our tax base with them. Let’s at least first get an honest understanding of how bad things are.
Should be front page news. Kudos for finding this.