[[What Do Taxes Do For Us?]]
They relieve us of the burden of carrying too much cash on us
Another good article, but I take exception to the following:
“The proposal’s alleged benefits are built on a foundation of sand, because the pension obligation of today will only grow, but the population of Illinois taxpayers in years to come will only shrink.”
Someone owns the land that is property taxed. Your example covers sales and income tax, rather than the stated property tax. However, as people scramble to leave, property values will likely go down, and they most definitely will go down when the tax comes out, but that loss will be felt by people currently owning the property and not by others choosing to buy the cheaper property.
I NEVER understood how Boeing could move HQ to Sweet Home Chicago.
The Government could spend less money such as to balance the books. And move the pensions of new employees to a 401k type of retirement plan.
What Do Taxes Do?
Suck our lifeblood out?
Bkmk tomorrow
Taxes
I heard an economics professor once say that for every 1% raise in taxes, GDP goes down 3%. If taxes don’t directly benefit the tax payer, they are illegitimate, a slippery slope into socialism.
Good article, but, the comparison to, say, KY, is not completely accurate, as KY tries to make up for lower real estate taxes by taxing most any other personal property one might have. Many localities also have local income taxes, which at least the towns and counties in IL that I am familiar with do not. And, per capita, KY’s pension plan (for state workers) is in more trouble than IL’s. Maybe Missouri is better???
I am pretty sure Arkansas is a better bet if one is planning a move: I have a friend in IL planning to move to AR largely to conserve resources for retirement, and I think he’s researched it fairly thoroughly.
Taxes are only part of the burden equation on the tax paying citizen. Devalued money/inflation from the balance that taxes don’t cover in government spending are a back door tax.
So it isn’t exactly taxes or just taxes that is the problem: that would be excessive government spending that is the ultimate problem.
You people keep voting for it.
Line the pockets of the political connected, it's the Chicago way.
An excellent column.