Chicago City Wire

Former Chicago aldermanic candidate David Krupa does not see how Illinois can still be Illinois if Gov. J.B. Pritzker gets his way with his progressive tax proposal.

“I think this progressive tax idea is totally dangerous for this state in terms of employment opportunities, tax burden and just general quality of life,” Krupa told Chicago City Wire. “It blows my mind how bad of a decision this is by city leaders.”

Krupa’s outrage is only exacerbated by reports that Illinois would instantly shed all of the 45,000 jobs it gained in 2019, with Illinois Policy Institute pegging the overall loss projection at 56,366 jobs if the tax were to become law. On a per capital basis, adjusted to take into account the number of employed residents, the study says Chicago would lose 22,700 jobs, but likely many more given there is more industry concentrated in the city than in other areas of the state.

“How can this state afford that,” said Krupa, adding that Illinois is already has a higher unemployment rate than the national average. “If this tax does pass, I’m prepared to build a coalition to circulate a petition before 2022 to get another amendment on the ballot that would amend the constitution to put a cap on income taxes.”

Later this year voters will decide if the state constitution should be amended to allow lawmakers the authority to enact a progressive tax system to replace the current flat tax.

In the lead-up to Election Day, Krupa says Pritzker and Democrats are using every deception they can to get the result they want.

“Now they’re championing [the progressive tax] as something that will only be a tax on the richest people of the state,” he said. “That might be the case for now, but later that threshold will be lowered to where it hits the middle class. That’s when the average person will start taking a hit and the problem of out-migration will become an even bigger issue for this state.”

Illinois has already lost population in each of the last six years. Over the past decade it had the country’s worse population loss.

Krupa doesn’t see any of that changing soon if the progressive tax ever sees the light of day.

“All these added taxes in Illinois are just a way to pay for all the waste and corruption,” he said. “We’re spending way too much, but not on good things just more wasteful spending. This is definitely a corruption tax and its stuff like this that’s killing this state.”