Property taxes are crushing families in the state of Illinois. People are fleeing our state at the rate of 1 person every 4.6 minutes. Illinois just fell to the 6th largest state after four straight years of population loss. We are now projected to lose 2 Congressional seats after the next census.

Families are taking home less of their hard-earned money after the 32% income tax increase and state property taxes are rising at 6X faster than incomes.

While families struggle to keep up or just decide to give up and move out of state, what do Illinois politicians do?

 

General Assembly scheduled for less than 20 days through April

In 2018, the Illinois General Assembly is only scheduled to be in session less than 20 days between now and April. 

While most working families and taxpayers started work January 2nd, our lawmakers don’t even have their first day of work until January 23rd.

After taking the entire month of December off, it the General Assembly has decided they will take most of January off too. When they do go back to work, we can expect more of the same: higher taxes and more spending.

The state House and Senate will spend just a couple of days a week in session, with breaks in between, in January, February, and March.

In the first 11 weeks of 2018, the House of Representatives has scheduled just 16 session days, and the Senate has scheduled just 18 session days.

Illinois legislators earn a $67,000 yearly salary for working this schedule. How does that compare to your work schedule?

Many of these career politicians are more concerned with their own reelection campaigns than they are with serving the people of their district.

 

The people of Illinois need solutions

While Illinois lawmakers take time off work, people in our community are working overtime.

Many are struggling to make ends meet, and they’re being forced to send more of their hard-earned paychecks to Springfield thanks to the tax-hike lawmakers passed last summer.

We are losing population, our manufacturing jobs lag behind neighboring states, and in 2016 we lost $4.75 billion in adjusted gross income to other states.

Some lawmakers say the reduced work schedule will keep them from doing more harm. What’s harming our state and our families is exactly this – ignoring our problems and continued lack of action.

We have a culture of corruption exacerbated by an unshakeable attitude of disinterest and complacency.

It’s not too late to save our state, we just need the right leaders to do it.

 

Photo of Illinois House of Representatives is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

 

“I’M GOING TO SPRINGFIELD TO DEFEND OUR HOMES, REPRESENT THE PEOPLE’S INTERESTS AND STOP THE RAISING OF PROPERTY TAXES.”

Illinois is Worth Fight For (Video)

For more information: Read about Tonia Khouri, her experience, leadership, stand on the issues and her endorsements.