As inflation goes, so goes sales tax says one local representative.
C.D. Davidsmeyer says that the Tom Demmer-Avery Bourne Inflation tax credit proposal is a way to help working class families deal with rising costs. Davidsmeyer says that since places are charging higher prices, they are also taking in more of the state sales tax.
Davidsmeyer says the tax credit would help offset the extra revenue the state is taking in: “The whole goal is to say: ‘Look, inflation is affecting people.’ The reality is that inflation affects the middle class and the working class more than it does the upper class. Originally, they were talking about do we reduce sales tax or what’s the best way to approach this. They looked at what the federal government is doing. The goal is to offset some of the inflation that’s been happening by the federal government printing so much money, because the reality is, the State of Illinois has benefited to the tune of almost $10 billion from the federal government…actually well over $10 billion, and our revenue for the State of Illinois is up $1.7 billion. I’m going to say that $580 million-$590 million of that is because of sales tax.”
Davidsmeyer says the G.O.P. led initiative would take more money out of the hands of politicians and place it back in residents’ hands. Davidsmeyer agrees with the Demmer solution of using federal Covid dollars being spent in Democrat-only districts on projects to be re-purposed for the tax credit: “In the state budget plan, they put an extra billion dollars worth of federal funds into pork projects for Democrat-only districts. That’s what I call using taxpayer dollars to buy votes. At the end of the day, they put an extra billion dollars [into those projects] that could be used to offset something to pay down pension debt. It could have paid off our $4.5 billion worth of liabilities that we have for the unemployment that we’ve spent over the last year and a half. There is a lot of things that the money could have gone to, but the Democrats chose to put a billion dollars of pork projects into Democrat-only districts.”
Davidsmeyer believes that state Democrats don’t want to give money back to taxpayers because they feel it is the government’s money to create initiatives and programs. Davidsmeyer says that the tax credit would be a better return on investment for the state’s taxpayers than another program.