Lake County Gazette

Rep. David McSweeney said Gov. J.B. Pritzker focuses on all the wrong things as the state tries to battle back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The unemployment rate is heading toward 15% and Pritzker’s only solution is to raise taxes again,” the Republican from Barrington Hills told the Lake County Gazette. “We must say no to tax hikes and immediately cut Illinois property tax levies and sales tax rates.”

With the state still reeling from the stay-at-home order he initially enacted back in late March, the governor recently announced plans to extend the order through the end of May that has forced countless small businesses across the state to shutter or curtail services.

Since the governor's order first took hold, the state’s unemployment rate has ticked up to 4.6 percent and climbing.

But through it all, Pritzker has continued to push the progressive income tax idea he has openly supported since his days as a candidate. The measure has been sold as only meaning higher taxes for the state’s most affluent residents. It will appear on the ballot in November in the form of a referendum question.

McSweeney, who has long made tax reform one of his signature issues in Springfield, fails to see the logic.

“Instead of taking steps to improve our economy, Gov. Pritzker is focused on raising Illinois taxes again,” he said. “We need to cut property tax levies and adopt real pension reform, not raise taxes.”

McSweeney recently launched the website “Cut Illinois Taxes Now,” which bills itself as “working to bring awareness to the citizens of Illinois about just how much they pay in taxes – property, gas, income, and more – and show how those taxes hurt the working families of Illinois.”