Lake County Gazette

Retired Air Force Col. Craig Wilcox sees his no-nonsense nature as being just the right strategy for rescuing Illinois from its long-existing doldrums.

“Homeowners in Lake and McHenry counties pay the highest property taxes in the nation,” Wilcox posted on his website. “Families are being driven out of our communities and seeing their home values destroyed. A hard cap at 1 percent of home value would force local governments to set fair and sustainable rates that don’t rob homeowners of their equity."

Soaring population losses are also another bone-of-contention for the 24-year military veteran.

Craig Wilcox

“High taxes are causing people to flee the state at an alarming rate,” he added in another post. “Illinois needs lower taxes, less regulations, and leaders committed to passing desperately needed reforms in order to bring jobs and people back to our state.”

Wilcox, a member of the McHenry County board running to replace retiring state Sen. Pam Althoff (R-McHenry) in District 32, adds a major part of the problem is the state’s ongoing pension reform issues.

“Illinois’ current pension model is unsustainable,” he added. “We need pension reform that is fair to both the state workers who have earned their retirement and taxpayers who can no longer afford to fund the system. We can start to bring down the financial burden by putting new workers on self-managed plans that combine public and private contributions and match employee fees.”

Finally, Wilcox advocates for all the changes and improvements to be done in the light of day, transparent enough for all taxpayers to know what is being done with their hard-earned tax dollars.

“There is an unfortunate lack of honesty and transparency from the elected officials in Springfield who are supposed to be working on behalf of taxpayers,” he added on his website. “We need courageous public servants who are willing to turn the tide.”

Wilcox has vowed to make government spending a signature issue of his campaign, pointing out how lawmakers recently passed a new state budget that carries a 32 percent permanent income tax hike as a glowing example of all that’s wrong with the way the state is governed.