Is Illinois broke? And if so, why?

Ty Fahner and the Civic Committee spent a million and a half dollars to spread lies like this billboard.

My friend Glen Brown, retired teacher, blogger, and wonderful poet, raises the question: Is Illinois broke? And if so, why?

The question comes up because Ty Fahner and the Civic Committee spent one and a half million dollars over the past month trying to convince Illinois tax payers and legislators that the state was broke and it was because of teacher pensions.

And frankly, it was left up to bloggers and activists like Glen to take on this story using facts.

During the entire fight to preserve pensions, the leadership of the IEA never really confronted the issue of fair state funding and tax policy.

That may seem like a sleep inducing topic.

But basically it comes down to this:  “Who pays?” The one per cent or the the 99%?

As Occupy Wall Street demonstrates, this question hasn’t exactly put people to sleep these last couple of months.

So, is Illinois broke?

Hell no.

But, like in other states and the rest of the country, giant corporations and multi-millionaires are sitting on piles of cash and paying nothing in taxes in return. In spite of that, corporations like Sears are holding their communities for ransom, demanding extensions on their tax-free status from the state legislature.

Rahm Emanuel is pushing for the state legislature to enact more tax breaks for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade when the General Assembly meets in special session on November 29th.

Seeing this, other giant corporations are getting in line demanding more state tax breaks for themselves.

State government may be broke. But the reason is that we live with a system that has state taxes falling on those least able to pay them. As Crain’s reported, Illinois has the lowest effective corporate tax rate in the entire midwest.

Glen asks the sensible question: Why does Illinois insist on preserving a flat income tax, the most regressive kind?

Why aren’t we taxing the rich who can most afford to pay?

Our political leaders have chosen to increase taxes and threaten the pension of public school teachers, while the billionaire gluttonous friends of Ty Fahner demand  more and more. And they always seem to get it.