Tuesday’s defeat of the referendum calling for a state constitutional amendment to allow for graduated income tax rates was so resounding that it’s doubtful any one change or even a raft of changes in the effort by proponents would have altered the result. But here are a few things they could have done that might have made the result a little closer.
1. Sharpened the choice. When voting last year to put the referendum on the ballot, lawmakers also passed accompanying legislation that established the new tax brackets that would go into effect if the referendum passed. Their idea was to clarify just what it was that Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other proponents had in mind — to reassure voters that they’d only pay more if they made more than $250,000 a year, and to provide an enticing estimate of the extra annual tax revenue in the offing (it was around $3 billion).
But what lawmakers failed to do was add to the accompanying legislation a hike in the current flat income tax rate that would kick in if the referendum failed. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton warned in September that if the so-called fair tax amendment failed, everyone’s income tax rates would have to rise some 20%, from the current 4.95% to nearly 6%.
If that late-hour warning — or threat if you prefer — had been written into law back in 2019, the proposition could have been rebranded the “Choose Your Tax Rate Referendum.” And the move would have insulated current members of the General Assembly from having to take a politically problematic vote for a tax hike in the wake of a suffocating defeat of a tax referendum, which at this writing seems to have been rejected by 55% of the electorate when it needed supermajority support to pass.
2. Made the proposed middle-class tax cut meaningful. The carrot held out for voters who earned between $10,000 and $100,000 a year was just about the smallest and least tasty root vegetable imaginable — a rate cut from 4.95% to 4.9%, enough to pay for one family dinner at a chain restaurant, basically.
Between $100,000 and $250,000 a year, the rate remained unchanged. The point, proponents told me, was to realize substantial new income while still keeping the very top rates on the very top earners under 8%. But if you’re going to soak the rich, people, soak the rich! Among neighboring states, Iowa and Minnesota have higher top graduated rates, and statewide polling in Illinois has long showed theoretical support for making higher earners pay more.
3. Enacted some good-faith measures suggesting a commitment to fiscal discipline. After each of the many columns I wrote in futile support of this amendment, I heard from scores of voters saying they would support a switch to progressive taxation if they had any faith that Springfield would be responsible with the extra money.
I understand the sentiment, even though the truth is that for fundamental services, Illinois is not a high-spending state. There’s not very much fat that can be painlessly cut from the budget, as fiscal hawks tend to discover when they try to swoop in for the kill. And during the pandemic, more and more struggling people are relying on the state for help.
But sure, there are redundancies and excess layers and units of government that could be consolidated and trimmed. While Pritzker was spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money promoting the referendum, he did little to nothing substantial or even symbolic to suggest that he was serious about enacting comprehensive efficiencies and looking for other methods beyond just taxing of the rich to address our budgetary woes.
“Pension reform” is a common demand given how suffocating our long-term retirement obligations have become. And although it’s much more complicated legally, morally and financially than the slogan suggests, politicians behind the referendum erred by not repeatedly expressing a commitment to reducing pension debt in ways that went beyond paying it down with new tax money.
4. Ousted veteran Democratic House Speaker and party chair Michael Madigan. Yes, Pritzker and Illinois’ Democratic U.S. senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, came out after the election to suggest the controversial Madigan relinquish at least some of his power. It was too little, too late, a reminder of their cowardice rather than a display of spine.
Madigan is a steely tactician who has maximized his party’s control in Springfield over many decades, but he’s come to symbolize all that is Machiavellian and untrustworthy in the state’s political class, particularly since he was identified earlier this year as the main target of sustained efforts by Commonwealth Edison to bribe his associates and influence legislation favorable to the utility.
He has not been charged in that case and denies all wrongdoing.
If I had $10 for every reader who invoked Madigan when explaining why they were voting against the referendum, I’d be rich enough to have opposed it for purely selfish reasons.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I know. As soon as the blame game is over, opponents and supporters of the referendum must now turn to the new question on the table: Now what?
Voters say ‘Jussie who?’
I correctly predicted the tax amendment would lose in last weekend’s column but, unlike readers, I also predicted that Democratic Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx would lose to Republican challenger Pat O’Brien because of voter unhappiness with her squirrelly, opaque handling of the Jussie Smollett case.
Yes, it was a minor alleged crime — police said the “Empire” TV actor falsely reported a hate crime against himself — but it got a lot of international attention, and the way Foxx’s office abruptly and without explanation dropped all charges against him prompted serious questions about her integrity and judgment.
Serious but evidently not substantial. Foxx trounced O’Brien by about 14 percentage points according to the latest results at this writing. The Smollett story will make more headlines when the charges against him — revived and now being handled by a special prosecutor — come back to court, and it certainly might become an issue should Foxx ever seek higher office.
But the people have spoken. It’s no big deal.
For more reflections on the election, listen to me and my Tribune colleagues Dahleen Glanton and Lisa Donovan on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals,” a WGN-plus podcast hosted by John Williams.
Re: Tweets
The winner of this week’s reader poll to select the funniest tweet was surprisingly apolitical. “Me: Do you want something to eat? Daughter: What are my choices? Me: Yes or no,” by @ServiceTech_.
The poll appears at chicagotribune.com/zorn where you can read all the finalists. For an early alert when each new poll is posted, sign up for the Change of Subject email newsletter at chicagotribune.com/newsletters.
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