Paying Taxes for Programs You Want - Illinois Version

Last Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reported that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s upcoming budget will not include funding for one of the Governor’s signature programs: providing healthcare for immigrants aged 42 to 65 who cannot prove they are here legally.  Governor Pritzker started this program in 2022, perhaps using monies left over from Covid grants from the federal government.  Now, however, the Governor will apparently cancel the program.

Except, of course, if the program is as important as Governor Pritzker has said it is, there is a simple way to get the money to continue it: Raise taxes.  If there is something government needs to do and it doesn’t have the funds to do it, there is no choice.  You have to raise taxes.

In some people’s view, Illinois’s flat-rate state income tax makes this harder.  But I think it tells us whether people really want a program.  I have this theory about government spending  (which I mentioned here): If you think the government needs to spend more money on X or Y, you need to say how you are going to raise the taxes to pay for the cost of X or Y.  And it can’t be a matter of raising taxes on somebody else; it has to be raising taxes on you.  Because you should be willing to pay more taxes if the program is really important.

Which is what is so nice about Illinois’s flat-rate income tax.  If people want to spend more money on some program, they can’t just say somebody else will pay for it.  They have to pay for it themselves.  Which means we will find out how important this program really is to its supporters – and to Governor Pritzker.