Lake County Gazette

Veteran Illinois state Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) has filed a resolution to have the progressive income tax proposal Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been pushing since his days as a candidate stripped from the November ballot.

“A progressive income tax is an eventual tax on the middle class that would hurt families and kill jobs,” McSweeney told the Lake County Gazette.

House Joint Resolution 126 is designed to put an end to those concerns, stipulating that “proposed changes to the Revenue Article of the Illinois Constitution contained in SJRCA 1” be stripped from the Nov. 3 General Election ballot.

McSweeney has long been an opponent of the proposal, previously telling The Gazette “I’m leading the fight against the progressive income tax because Illinois taxes are too high. The progressive tax is a code phrase for a massive hike.”

Around that same time, government watchdog Wirepoints analyzed the tax the governor has insisted will only mean higher taxes for the state’s wealthiest residents, arriving at the harsh reality the plan is filled with deceit and only aimed at fleecing already-frustrated taxpayers out of even more of their hard-earned money.

Despite the governor’s insistence that the plan means a start to the end of the state’s financial struggles, Wirepoints sees things differently and McSweeney shares that view.

“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 recently wrote in an op-ed for Illinois News Network. “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. Do you really trust Illinois career politicians to set your tax rates?”