Dems Have an Affordability Conundrum
House Speaker Chris Welch speaks at an event in 2025. (Photo: Chicago Sun-Times)
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OPINION
Democrats who control the legislature are laser focused on their message this spring. They say (correctly) that cost of living, or affordability, is the cornerstone issue of the legislative session.
“We’re going to focus on things that help folks in their household budget,” House Speaker Chris Welch told Capitol News Illinois. “We’re going to focus on things that help create good jobs, wage growth and opportunity. We’re going to help our small businesses continue to grow and succeed.”
While they’re saying the right things (and, clearly, beating Republicans to the punch on an issue that should be helping the GOP in Illinois), actually delivering on making life more affordable in the state could come back to bite them in the collective posterior this November.
Case in point: If you go and talk to the average voter in Illinois about things that cost too much, you’re going to hear things like “property taxes,” “groceries,” “gasoline,” and “energy bills.” I’ve seen polling that generally backs this up.
If Democrats are going to take on any of these things in a meaningful way this year, it’s going to require far more politically perilous votes than Democrats typically want to make in an election year.
Let’s start with taxes. As you well know, the state doesn’t levy a property tax. And half of your property tax bill goes to your local school district. Let’s say, for instance, Democrats decided to boost state funding to education in return for property tax reduction. Let’s say, a billion dollars. I can’t find a current estimate for how much residential property tax revenue is collected today. The most recent estimate I saw as around $18 billion, but that’s before home prices skyrocketed during COVID, so you can imagine how much it is today. Finding an extra billion dollars in the General Revenue Fund to relieve school taxes is simply just a drop in a bucket. And good luck finding a Democrat in the General Assembly that’s going to get on board with a billion dollars in cuts to pay for it.
Another easy way to put a little more money in the pockets of taxpayers is to cut the individual income tax. If you cut the income tax by a point, from 4.95% to 3.95%, even just for this election year, you’re saving the median individual taxpayer around $800. Not a lot, but I’ll take it. But the state collects $28 billion in individual income taxes. Reducing that by 20% (one point in the income tax rate), removes roughly $5.6 billion from the general revenue fund. Again, find me a Democrat willing to make those cuts. I won’t hold my breath.
Democrats have already bungled the grocery tax, repealing the (miniscule) tax consumers pay that adds up to quite a bit for municipalities, and, instead, forced most municipalities around the state to become the bad guys for implementing the same tax that already existed on their own. Governor Pritzker will surely say in a TV ad that he “repealed the grocery tax” when, in reality, it didn’t do a damn thing to make your life cheaper.
They also quietly chose to forego the inflation adjustment on the motor fuel tax at the start of the year, so I’m sure they’ll take a victory lap for that, you know, pausing the tax increase they voted for. And don’t forget, you’re still being double taxed on gasoline. There’s the motor fuel tax then the sales tax on top of the whole darn thing when you go to the pump. Good luck convincing them to repeal that sales tax, though, they just raided $400 million from downstate roads and bridges to pay for Chicago mass transit.
And I don’t have to remind you, I’m sure, of the woefully inadequate energy legislation that Democrats passed in October. The bill they promised (on the House and Senate floor and on my radio show, I hate being lied to) would bring down energy bills. Unfortunately, anyone who can read plain English saw the legislation did nearly nothing to reduce energy costs and added battery storage fees that would allow ComEd and Ameren to actually increase our energy bills. Huh?
If Democrats were serious, we’d hear less complaining about data centers, MISO, and PJM and we’d hear more about producing more energy in Illinois right freakin’ now. That means delaying the forced closure dates of plants under CEJA and Gov. Pritzker should be on the phone right now with companies who can open, re-open, convert, or expand natural gas energy plants that burn significantly cleaner than coal. You can’t get new nuclear on the grid right away, but I’d love to see the state roll out the red carpet to get new nuclear power up and running in the state.
I hope Democrats are up to the challenge. Their failures on these issues in recent years make me less than optimistic they’ll be able to deliver. If they don’t, Republicans should hammer them on these issues in November.
I know I will.
