Lake County Gazette

A new Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) report projects that if the fair tax proposal Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been selling since his days as a candidate were to ever become law, the state would suffer a hit severe enough to wipe out all its job gains of 2019.

None of it comes as much of a surprise to veteran state Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, who long ago predicted such an act would mean even more struggle for the cash-strapped state.

“The progressive tax is a code phrase for a massive job-killing tax hike,” McSweeney told the Lake County Gazette. “We need to cut taxes, not raise them.”

In all, IPI forecasts that some 56,399 jobs would be lost.

And even as Pritzker continues to insist the progressive tax will only mean higher rates for the state’s most affluent, more and more people across the state are joining McSweeney in challenging the how many residents may ultimately be impacted.

“Bipartisan leaders in Springfield need to stop treating Illinois taxpayers as their own personal piggy bank,” McSweeney added in a post to Facebook. “I’m leading the fight to cut taxes in Illinois so that you can keep more of your hard-earned money.”

Voters will finally have their say in November when they go to the polls to vote on the question of if the state Constitution should be amended to allow lawmakers the power to enact a progressive tax system.

McSweeney sought to sound the alarm bell in a recent op-ed he penned for The Center Square Illinois.

“The progressive income tax, the linchpin of the Pritzker plan, wouldn’t hurt the wealthy a lot – they easily can move out of Illinois,” he wrote. “It would harm the middle class. There is a reason we do not see a tax rate schedule from those supporting the progressive income tax. They do not want voters to see exactly who the progressive income tax will affect.”