Luxury taxes?

Let's get this straight right off the top: I'm a liberal/Democrat
At the same time, I hate the way governments keep digging deeper and deeper into my pockets for tax money. Even if it's for a good cause. My pockets have bottoms.

But there are times and there are issues....

I absolutely hate the way this is going, but at first glance, it looks embarrassingly like I have to support Sen. Winkel's school funding plan. You have no idea how that hurts to say. It may be the first thing he's done that didn't just plain either anger or embarrass me.

Illinois (and a lot of the rest of the country) MUST change the way schools are funded.

Because unequal funding based on property tax means unequal education, and we cannot afford to not offer the absolute best education possible to every child in Illinois and the U.S. To do otherwise is to slowly cut our own throats. (SOMEONE'S gotta pay for my Social Security...)

According to the Chicago Tribune, this bill could mean a boost in my taxes of up to 20 percent. I doubt those numbers, but I don't have a newsroom full of bean counteing reporters at my disposal to prove otherwise.

From wealthy big-city enclaves to middle-income Downstate communities, homeowners would see a 20 percent increase on average in their combined property and state income tax bills if Illinois overhauls how it pays for public schools, a Tribune computer analysis of tax data shows.

The state Senate is poised to vote this week on a proposed $5.8 billion plan to raise Illinois' state income tax rate to 5 percent, from 3 percent, and use a portion of the extra revenue to help homeowners pay their school taxes. Overall, state aid to public schools would rise, reducing heavy reliance on local property taxes that create disparities between wealthy and poor districts.

I don't want my taxes to go up 20 percent.

But at the same time, I don't want this state and the world run by just the rich white kids from the Gold Coast and Evanston and Naperville because their school district has a higher property tax rate than some poorer district. That's what we've got now. Ain't working.

Winkel's bill certainly isn't perfect, but if it points the state AWAY fron property tax support to ANYTHING ELSE, it's a good start, and it seems to me about the only move the state's made in this direction since I've lived here.

The legislation seems to make sense, although I'm sure there's something terribly wrong and terribly flawed here that I'm not seeing.

According the the News-Gazette:

The legislation would increase the personal income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and raise the corporate income tax rate from 4.8 percent to 8 percent, raising a projected $5.8 billion a year.
Of that, $3 billion would be used to reimburse school districts for reducing the elementary and secondary education portion of every residential and non-residential property tax bill in the state by 30 percent.
Another $1.7 billion would be used to raise the per-pupil minimum spending level from $4,964 to $6,100.
The rest of the revenue would be used to contribute $120 million a year to special education and other services schools are required to provide; give $370 million a year to universities and community colleges; provide local governments with an extra $190 million a year; give renters a $30 tax credit; double the size of the tax credit for educational expenses to a maximum of $1,000 per family; and quadruple the earned income tax credit for low-income Illinoisans.

The Trib says that plan will raise my taxes, even though my property taxes will be falling. That may be true. Then again, I don't consider a good education a luxury reserved for wealthy people and wealthy areas. If I have to pay a little more, maybe it's worth it in the long run.

Gov. Blago has promised to veto the bill, standing firmly on his 'perpetually campaigning and never governing' podium.

I hope Winkel's bill passes and survives the veto.

I doubt supporting this is gonna turn me into a Republican. After all, if my taxes go up, I won't be able to afford it anyway.

And so it goes.