Illinois schools are underfunded, but Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn has a solution–soak the rich, though he and his aides prefer to call it a Robin Hood solution. Quinn, a Democrat, wants to double income taxes on the state’s wealthiest taxpayers and use the money to finance schools and to offer a property-tax rebate. “There’s a principle as old as the Bible–taxes should be based on the ability to pay them,” he says. “I’m not the only politician to say it. One hundred years ago we had a Republican president named Teddy Roosevelt, who was a big supporter of that principle. Before that we had another Republican president who believed taxes should be based on your ability to pay–Abraham Lincoln.”
Under this system public education has suffered the worst cuts. The state now covers only about 37 percent of public education costs, one of the lowest rates in the country, and that has pushed the burden onto local property owners. But the property tax is inequitable–wealthy communities wind up with much more money for their schools than poor communities. Moreover, it doesn’t take into account a property owner’s ability to pay. As Head points out, rates are determined by an assessment that’s based on recent housing sales in the area. “If your neighbor sells his house and makes a pile of money, your assessment goes up,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean your income has gone up. That doesn’t mean you can afford to pay more in property taxes. It simply means you’re being assessed for your neighbor’s profit.”
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Since then politicians have occasionally stepped forward to point out the inadequacies of the system. In 1992 Democrats and Republicans even got together to draft a statewide referendum asking voters to fund at least 51 percent of educational costs through the income tax. But a few days before the election the sitting governor, Jim Edgar, a Republican, announced that he would vote against the measure on the grounds that the state couldn’t afford to commit so much money to education. The referendum still got 58 percent of the vote, but it needed 60 percent to pass.
He says he doesn’t expect strong resistance to raising taxes on people making more than $250,000. For one thing, there aren’t that many of them–they account for under 2 percent of taxpayers. “There’s 81,343 out of 5.7 million returns with incomes over $250,000 a year,” he says. “That means 5.6 million returns will not be affected.”
Actually it’s even more complicated. To show legislators how popular his plan would be, Quinn wants to have it placed on ballots in selected districts as an advisory referendum before placing it on a statewide ballot. Advisory referenda can be put on the ballot by local municipalities, so he’d be going over the heads of the politicians so that he can eventually go over the heads of the politicians. At any rate, the idea of a tax swap might first appear on the March 16 primary ballot. If voters approve it, the General Assembly could put a binding referendum on the November 2004 presidential election ballot.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jon Randolph.
