Metro East Sun

Republican state Senate candidate Jason Plummer sees these as perilous times for Illinois.

“Illinois is facing various headwinds right now, with the biggest issue people are complaining about every day being that taxes are out of control,” Plummer told the Metro East Sun. “People are literally being taxed out of their homes and businesses aren’t coming here because we can’t compete with any of the surrounding states. Danger is all around with everyone wondering where we go from here.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago recently proposed a plan to raise property taxes by nearly 50 percent over the next three decades, with most of the added revenue going toward paying the state’s pension debt.

The DuPage Policy Journal previously reported the increase would raise the annual taxes on a home valued at $500,000 by nearly $5,000, more than enough to erase the state’s growing pension liabilities based on estimates by economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Plummer, running against Democrat Brian Stout for the 54th District Senate seat, argues things are not that simple.

“Legislators in Springfield have been making these kinds of promises and not fulfilling them forever,” he said. “What’s one more promise from a group that’s always made promises just to break them?”

At 2.67 percent of a home’s value, Illinois homeowners already pay the highest property tax rates in the country, the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) states.

The state’s latest proposed taxing spree might not end there. Ford, Lake, Will, Kane and Frankfort counties all have a 1-percent sales tax referendums planned for the ballot this fall.

In Will County, most of the added revenue is earmarked for local school districts, with more than a dozen of them having already endorsed the legislation. The increase would be on par with Chicago’s 10.25-percent tax burden, according to IPI, while the sales tax rate in Frankfort would jump from 7 percent to 8 percent.

“There are consequences to all this,” Plummer said. “We’ve already gone from being the fifth to the sixth largest city as out-migration runs rampant. The more we raise taxes and make Illinois more uncompetitive for businesses and unattractive to families, the more we will continue to see people fleeing.”

The only solution lies in reinventing the way Springfield operates, Plummer said.

“We need new people in Springfield,” he said. “This is not a Republican or Democratic problem; it’s an arithmetic problem. We don’t need more people in office based on promises they made they know they can’t keep.”

The 54th District includes Bond, Clinton, Effingham, Fayette, Madison, Marion, St. Clair and Washington counties.