A message from John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute:
With Governor Quinn’s $3.2 billion tax hike now in the dustbin, everyone claims it was always headed for defeat. But last spring, it was a different story—legislators, activists and the media all said the tax hike was a “done deal.”
Not so fast. First, we issued our report, “Who will really pay for Governor Quinn’s tax hike?on television, on the radio and in the papers.
The other side came back with claims that there was no way to balance the budget without a tax hike. “It’s very important that we raise taxes,” Governor Quinn said, and he vowed he wasn’t about to back down.
We responded with our “Budget Solutions 2010” report, which provided a menu of options on how to balance the budget without the tax hike. The Chicago Tribune endorsed our plan and our ideas took the state by storm.
But now the fight is on again. The drumbeat for a tax hike is already beginning… it’s the same story all over again.
And we have to be ready to defeat that tax hike all over again.
But we need your help to do it.
Our state’s hardworking taxpayers can’t afford more taxes. We can’t afford spending that’s spiraling out of control. We need to freeze spending at the current level for a few years, working out the waste, fraud and inefficiency of state government while our economy recovers.
Of course, we also want to continue providing the core government services so many count on—and we can do both.
To prove this, we want to do the hard work that Governor Quinn won’t do, that Mike Madigan and John Cullerton won’t do, and that the public employee unions hope we won’t do.
We want to dig into the numbers, comparing the current budget proposals to spending in 2006 to show where the money has gone and what can be done to fix our current mess. However, I need your help to do this.
By doing this work now, we’ll be ready in January and February with plenty of ammunition when that tax hike drumbeat gets louder and louder. I am asking you to help us fund this work so we can be ready to win again—just like we did using our Budget Solutions 2010 report—in just a few short months when the tax hike fight starts again.
I’m asking you to make a donation of $100, $500 or $5,000. Can you do that today? We need to raise $53,250 in the next 20 days to do this. Will you help? Click here to make a donation now and help us fight and win again.
To see what’s at stake, and the lengths the SEIU public employees union will go to, watch this video. It’s from my recent appearance on Chicago Tonight debating Josh Kalven of Progress Illinois, the SEIU public employee union supported organization. As you’ll see, for Josh it’s not about how much government you can afford, it’s about how much revenue the SEIU can get from you.
Now, as I said, we need $53,250 to do the study—the hard, number-crunching budgeting work that the politicians won’t do—and we need to get started as soon as possible. Can I count on you today? Click here to help us win this fight.
Remember, in 2009 everyone said the tax hike was a “done deal.” But you and thousands of others helped us do the work, spread the word, and appear in the media (as you may remember, I debated Gov. Quinn live on FOX. You can see it here). Together we stopped that job-killing tax hike.
We need to be ready. Let’s get to work now. Please click here now to help us get started.