Chicago City Wire

Given the high stakes, Northwest Side GOP Club Vice President Ammie Kessem is demanding more accountability from Springfield Democrats.

“While I am not in favor of raising income taxes at all until these fiscally irresponsible members of the General Assembly start making some serious reforms to how the people’s money is being spent, a 20% increase is still far less than what is currently being proposed if this corruption tax ever goes through,” Kessem told Chicago City Wire.  

At the end of the day, Kessem reasons the 20% tax hike Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton recently threatened taxpayers with should the progressive tax the governor has been pushing since his days as a candidate falls short may be the lesser of two evils.  

“The progressive income tax will raise taxes to 7.99% on many individuals in this state,” she added. “A 20% increase would bring that number to 5.94% up from the current 4.95%.”

All in all, however, Kessem argues it’s just more of the same recklessness from Springfield.

“This is just more fear mongering by the failed Democrat leadership and I’m hoping the voters will be wise enough to see through these shenanigans,” she said.

Kessem has long blasted the progressive tax hike proposal the governor continues to sell as only an increase for the state’s most affluent residents as just more smoke and mirrors.

“It is a total sham,” she said. “The Democratic Party in Illinois is once again attempting to pull the wool over the voters' eyes. When I ran for state representative in 2018, I printed out and gave voters a copy of the summary page of the piece of legislation my opponent wrote that spelled out exactly what the middle-income families would expect to pay should this progressive income tax bill pass. It was hardly a tax cut. Now the Democratic governor is pushing for legislation that would merely change the state from having a flat tax to a progressive tax and he’s doing it under false pretenses.”