Month: March 2016

Raise my Taxes, Please

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I have promised, in the past, not to make this a political blog. In this remarkable year in politics, though, I think I’m going to have some trouble keeping that promise. I will try to keep it to a minimum. Here is my first foray. Don’t even get me started on Trump.

 

Illinois is not a poor state. We rank 15th in per capita income in the United States. We exceed every surrounding state in per capita income, median household income, and median family income. Of neighboring states the only one who comes close to Illinois in any of these metrics is Wisconsin who finishes six places back at 21st. Behind Wisconsin is Iowa in 22nd place, Missouri at 33rd, Indiana way back at 38th place, and finally Kentucky near the back of the pack at 46th.

If we were a poor state I might feel differently about the man-made “financial crisis” which has established us as the laughingstock of the country. If we were Mississippi, where the per capita income is in the neighborhood of $20,000 I could explain and justify underfunded schools, decaying bridges, cuts to critical social services, unmowed state parks, and IOU’s issued to schools in lieu of money. If we were a third world country I could understand the governor and the legislature bickering like children about state university funding.

But the truth is, Illinois is not a poor state, sadly we are a cheap state with a very regressive tax scheme. Our per capita income of about $30,000 is 105% of the U.S. average. We really do have the wherewithal to pay our bills, fund our schools adequately, and maintain world class infrastructure. Like so much of our center-right country, though, we simply don’t want to pay for it. But guess what; quality costs money.

The Republican party has convinced people for 36 years that you can have your cake and eat it, too. They have encouraged the mythology that lower taxes for rich people (or job creators as they call them) leads to prosperity for all and, specifically in the case of Illinois, that taxes are too damn high. The common wisdom is that Illinois is a “high tax” state, especially when contrasted with the responsible “Republican Governor” states that surround us. The facts, as often happens, differ from the mythology.

Remember good old Scott Walker, the “tax-cutting, labor-busting, rock-ribbed conservative” from Wisconsin. His state’s income tax rate, according to a 2015 Forbes Magazine study is 66% higher than “high tax” Illinois. On a taxable income of $50,000 Wisconsin residents pay 5.68%. Illinois flat rate is 3.75%. Forbes is hardly hardly a bleeding-heart liberal publication.

In fact, the Forbes survey says that Illinois income taxes on $50,000 were lower than all of our neighboring states except Indiana with a flat rate of 3.3%. (One side note: All Indiana counties tax income as well to the tune of .245% bringing an Indiana resident’s total income tax to 3.545%, pretty close to ours.) On $50,000 Iowa, with it’s Republican Governor-for-life Terry Branstad, taxes it’s citizens at a rate of 5.70%. Missouri’s rate is 5.55% and Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky (our poorest neighbor) taxes 4.03%. (Another side note: Like Indiana several of these states have local and county income taxes which add to their total. Illinois does not. Local and county income taxes in Iowa average .073%, in Missouri .161%, and in Kentucky a whopping .759%.)

“Hold on,” I hear my Republican friends seething, “Illinois has the highest property taxes in the nation.” That is “kind of” true. According to some surveys comparing property taxes to home value we rank 6th, behind New Jersey, New Hampshire, Texas, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Other recent surveys put us at number 2 behind only New Jersey. That is, I must admit, relatively high. But property taxes are determined by local taxing bodies and fund important local services; schools, snow plowing, and sewers. Property taxes in Illinois are high, in many cases, in response to lost state funding at all levels. If our schools were funded more equitably from state income taxes property taxes could be lower and voters would probably demand that they would be. The fiscal mess in Springfield has forced local taxing bodies to bump-up rates merely to survive. Also, property tax rates vary wildly across the state with some of the wealthiest areas of the state paying the lowest rates and vice versa. In this way Illinois property taxes are even regressive.

Which brings us to the regressive nature of Illinois income tax. In Illinois the poorest taxpayers pay the same rate on their incomes as the richest billionaires, say our Governor, for example. In terms of total taxes it is worse. According to a 2014 Chicago Sun Times article “In Illinois, the state’s poorest residents—those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale—pay almost three times as much of their earnings in taxes as the top one percent do.” This is not right. Paying 3.75% of your income in taxes is a great deal more onerous if you make minimum wage than if the bulk of your millions comes from capital gains and interest.

So, “liberal” Illinois is harder on it’s poor taxpayers than any of the so-called “conservative” states which surround us. To further exacerbate the problem, funding our schools with local property taxes has led to a huge disparity in educational outcomes between the rich and the poor in Illinois. (See my essay from May 27, 2015 called And the Loser is…) It is high time we shifted school funding in Illinois to an income tax based system and high time that we brought in a progressive income tax to fund it.

To address the fiscal crisis Illinois income tax rates were boosted in 2011 from 3% to 5% (before sunsetting back to 3.75% in 2015). Republicans reacted as if the sky were falling. But the top marginal rate in Iowa (which kicks in at $100,000) is 8.98%. In Missouri it is 6.0%. Wisconsin’s top rate is 7.65%. So the rich in Illinois are doing pretty well despite their belly-aching. This regressive system we have in place has not served us well, either, from a revenue point of view. It has been estimated that if we simply adopted the taxation scheme of Scott Walker’s Wisconsin in its entirety we would collect almost $10 Billion more per year which would more than cover our deficit and allow us to have good roads, good schools, and fund the social safety net programs Governor Rauner has threatened to cut. And would it “kill our economy?” Ask Scott Walker.

Let’s be honest. Nobody likes to pay taxes. It is harmful to tax too heavily. But there is a balance between maintaining world class infrastructure and services and being a third world country. Illinois is on it’s way to being a place people don’t want to live; not because income taxes are too high but because we are perceived as a state in a downward-spiral with poor schools, bad roads, and an embarrassment of a state government. Is it worth paying a bit more to have solvency, quality schools, and a world-class infrastructure? Absolutely. We are not a poor state. We can afford it.

 

by: Dustin Joy

The Boy in the Picture

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The Boy (there is not really a ten foot trout jumping up the waterfall.) My boy added that.

On the wall of my bedroom is a picture. It was given to me by my Mother who took it, had it enlarged, and had it framed. It is on the wall where I see it first thing in the morning when I swing my feet to the floor and stand up.

The picture is of a boy. The boy sits on a rock looking at a waterfall. Because I know a bit of the history of the picture I know that the rock and the waterfall and the boy are in Yellowstone National Park. The boy faces away, always, with his back turned to the camera. He is pensive, silent. It is clear to me that he doesn’t know about the camera. He is oblivious to everything around him but the waterfall. Waterfalls can do that.

The boy is a teenager. He is thin and gangly but not slouchy. He sits up straight (as his mother undoubtedly told him to) because he is a good boy. He is a good boy and he is a smart boy but his clothing reveals that he is not a “cool” boy. Here in the middle of a forest in the middle of a national park in the middle of the Summer he is wearing a button down shirt and blue jeans. His “cool” brother is undoubtedly clad in shorts and a t-shirt.

The boy sits on the rock watching the water flow down through the canyon and he holds his jacket folded in his lap. He is calm, you might say serene. He seems at ease here in a way that he is not anywhere else. Being here in nature, watching the simple, eternal cycle of water evaporating up and running back down gives him a respite from the ceaseless barrage of teenage thoughts and the endless interior monolog in his head. Here on this rock he can forget about the compulsion to behave and to do well and to study hard and to achieve great things. In this place he can stop the flow of hormone-driven nonsense that colors his view of the world and the other people in it; girls, jocks, bullies, teachers, adults. I think the boy on the rock, in that moment, wishes he could stop the relentless flow of time and sit there, if not forever, then at least a little bit longer.

I wake up every morning and I look at the boy sitting on the rock. There are times I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could tell him a few things that I know about the world but he doesn’t. I wish I could make his life easier. What would I tell him? I would tell him that a lot of the things he worries about just aren’t going to matter in a few years. I would tell him that some of the people in his life that he trusts or admires will let him down or hurt him. I would tell him what moves to make and perhaps what moves not to make in this great chess game called life. I would like to save him some grief. I would like to help him find more joy.

Mostly I would like to offer him some valuable knowledge that he will otherwise acquire through pain and embarrassment. There is so much a teenage boy thinks he knows that just isn’t so. His certitude primes him for disappointment and mistakes. He needs somebody who has experienced the world to help him navigate this perplexing place. But he won’t listen. He won’t hear it even though he is a good boy. He didn’t listen to his Mom or his Dad. He had to make the mistakes on his own. He is a silly stubborn boy!

All of us grizzled and jaded adults want to talk to the boy in the picture. We have seen suffering and we want to save him from it. We have tasted defeat and we want to rig the game in his favor. We have felt heartache and we want to help him dodge it. We want to trim the gristle off of life for him so he can enjoy the steak. But life is a marbled piece of meat. The good times and the bad times are inextricably intertwined. The people who give us the most pain are capable, at times, of giving us the most joy. Decisions which were clearly mistakes teach us something of value, even if it’s only the mundane lesson not to touch a hot stove a second time.

And if we could talk to the boy in the picture would we really know what to tell him? Have we learned anything true from our own experience? Would we tell him how to avoid our fate? As I lie in this bed snuggled against my wife, the absolute joy of my life, or stand silent in the hallway in the middle of the night listening to the most profoundly wonderful sound I will ever hear, my children’s breathing, I’m not so sure. Would I dare lead the boy away from a path which might be difficult but which will ultimately bring him to the warm place next to his soul mate, a woman who loves him and understands him and forgives him? Would I dare divert him even one degree from the true course that leads here, to this quiet hallway, to this bed?

When I consider, from the vantage point of age, what I would like to teach this boy about the world, I am troubled by a fleeting thought. What if the truth of the matter is this; I wish I didn’t know some of the things he doesn’t know. Sometimes I wish the boy could untell me things. I wish he could unteach me some of the bitter lessons I learned along the way. I wish he could teach me instead to trust people again. I wish he could help me forget all those things I know about the cruelty and greed and pettiness of other people. I wish he could teach me the pleasure of sitting on a rock.

The boy in the picture never changes. He is fifteen years old forever and there is no way I will ever teach him anything. But there may be, just possibly, a way for him to teach me a few things by his serene example. Maybe if I study the picture I can unlearn the cynicism and sarcasm that separates me sometimes from the ones I love. Maybe I can learn to forgive the people in my life who have let me down or disappointed me. Maybe I can learn, from the boy in the picture, how to just sit on a rock sometimes and let the world flow around me like a waterfall.

by: Dustin Joy