Illinois has only two choices, raise taxes higher or cut services

a reply to: JAGStorm

There's strength in numbers. Until the people rise up and say enough is enough, it will continue to be business as usual.
We don't hold our elected officials accountable, period. Many people vote along party lines and have no idea where their candidate stands on an issue before casting their vote. Politicians salaries and pensions are out-of-line with the majority of Americans. They use tax-payers money without any concern of cost when it comes to their personal operation expenditures. (A newly elected official receives $40,000 dollars to remodel their local office!)

I personally think we have way too many elected officials. Considering were living in a computer age and everyone is connected one way or another, the public can easily vote on issues directly from their smart phone or home computer. We also have way too many businesses, universities, churches and charitable organization who are declared tax exempt.

Nobody should be tax-exempt if they're all receiving city services! I've seen more local universities constructing and purchasing buildings and expanding their campuses more than ever before. I've seen several new churches being built in the past 5 years, while they continue to receive donations and raise thousands of dollars during outdoor festivals. Some of these churches have been built in prime high tax retail areas! We have hotel's like the Sheraton that are being tax-exempt. We have families with 4 or 5 children who pay "0" in school taxes because they're living in rental homes or apartments. I feel higher school taxes should only be paid by families who have school-aged children. Those who no-longer have school aged children should be paying a base fee.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: JAGStorm

There's strength in numbers. Until the people rise up and say enough is enough, it will continue to be business as usual.
We don't hold our elected officials accountable, period. Many people vote along party lines and have no idea where their candidate stands on an issue before casting their vote. Politicians salaries and pensions are out-of-line with the majority of Americans. They use tax-payers money without any concern of cost when it comes to their personal operation expenditures. (A newly elected official receives $40,000 dollars to remodel their local office!)

I personally think we have way too many elected officials. Considering were living in a computer age and everyone is connected one way or another, the public can easily vote on issues directly from their smart phone or home computer. We also have way too many businesses, universities, churches and charitable organization who are declared tax exempt.

Nobody should be tax-exempt if they're all receiving city services! I've seen more local universities constructing and purchasing buildings and expanding their campuses more than ever before. I've seen several new churches being built in the past 5 years, while they continue to receive donations and raise thousands of dollars during outdoor festivals. Some of these churches have been built in prime high tax retail areas! We have hotel's like the Sheraton that are being tax-exempt. We have families with 4 or 5 children who pay "0" in school taxes because they're living in rental homes or apartments. I feel school higher taxes should only be paid by families who have school-aged children. Those who no-longer have school aged children should be paying a base fee.

Renters are paying taxes indirectly as the landlord has to account for property taxes in the rent they charge.

People with large families do tend to not pay their "fair share". My next door neighbors have four kids. I have two kids. Our property tax bills are similar, but they use twice the school services that I would. For 10 years, I didn't even have kids and my property taxes are primarily paying for schools I was not using.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Illinois lawmakers are staring into an abyss of either their state or their careers. If they choose to salvage their state, they will cut services and their Kept Voters will leave the state as they will no longer be receiving their handouts to ensure they keep voting for the Meal Ticket, meaning those politicians will be voted out by the new self responsible majority of Illinois residents next election cycle. If they choose their careers and vote again to raise taxes to maintain the handout funding for the Kept Voters, then Atlas will continue to shrug and even more of their income earners who have been robbed to fund the Kept Voters will leave the state in favor of states where a man's earnings are mostly his own.

This is what happens when you build a voter base off of paying people from other's earnings in exchange for votes.

a reply to: Edumakated

I understand that property owners pays the school tax, but really that's unfair. This is a tax that directly benefit families with school aged children. It really shouldn't even be associated with property taxes! It should be a separate tax and a fixed tax based upon how many school aged children reside in the home. We all need to support education, so those of us who don't have school aged children, should pay a flat minimum fee to help support the up-keep of school facilities. Retirees 65 and older should be exempt. After all they need a break from paying taxes their entire life.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: Edumakated

I understand that property owners pays the school tax, but really that's unfair. This is a tax that directly benefit families with school aged children. It really shouldn't even be associated with property taxes! It should be a separate tax and a fixed tax based upon how many school aged children reside in the home. We all need to support education, so those of us who don't have school aged children, should pay a flat minimum fee to help support the up-keep of school facilities. Retirees 65 and older should be exempt. After all they need a break from paying taxes their entire life.

I got into a huge arguement about this with my MIL.

If old folks don't want to pay for schools, young working folks probably don't want to pay for social security, medicaid/care, firemen, higher health care premiums. Let's face it, old folks probably getting the better end of the deal with these things, so becareful what you wish for.

a reply to: Edumakated

Finally, it is too easy for politicians to convince voters to raise taxes on someone else to pay for all the new demands.. i.e, the rich.

Hopefully "the rich" (whoever that may be) gets smart and learns to hide money better (Crypto currency is one way) or simply takes their money and moves it to a nation that doesn't comply with US legal processes. As far as that goes, if they start trying to rob them/us too bad, could just relocate all together.

Either way, those crooks don't deserve another cent from any red blooded American until some form of a balanced budget amendment is undertaken.

They want all these goofy "social programs" let them fund them on their own.

a reply to: WeRpeons

We all need to support education,

Sure, private education... institutions that can "cut" children who aren't performing up to par or who don't take their education seriously.

Public schooling and "no child left behind" type nonsense forces the class to work at the lowest common denominator. We want future generations of high achievers not mediocre, indoctrinated, brainwashed automatons.

I'll finance private schooling for deserving and qualified children all day long.

I'll also gladly finance work-study type programs and apprenticeships for those who can't or won't perform well academically.

I would gladly finance ROTC-type training for physically fit/capable students who simply have no interest in hard academics beyond the grade school level. This would be very similar to private school, but would only teach "hard academics" required for military/defense purposes (such as STEM fields) and trim all the "elective liberal arts" type stuff along with needless material like world history or non-hostile-nation foreign languages. This option, as it would prepare future soldiers, is NOT a cop-out to private school but rather a more focused option on those with an interest in a military career

It comes down to this: stop using the power of the state to force children into a mold. Stop holding back high achievers because some slacker low-life who isn't interested in learning wants to use public schools as Face Book 2.0

Getting bad marks on a report card simply isn't a good enough motivator for someone who doesn't give a damn about their future prospects anyhow - why are we throwing away money and resources on them? We all know those kids will just end up flipping burgers or cleaning toilets so why waste all that time and money on them? We will always need janitors and other service personnel so lets start recognizing this early and letting our top achievers achieve greatness and the under-achievers get started under-achieving early. In America, you are only limited by YOUR OWN effort and potential - yet in public schools, each class is limited by the lowest performing students.

What I won't do is ever support dumping even more money into failing public schools. In fact, I believe the entire concept of State run schools to be offensive and naturally filled with waste (since it is quasi-governmental, after all)