South Central Reporter

Illinois House Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) wonders how some of his legislative colleagues in Springfield are among the only people in the state who fail to see the perils of their tax-and-spend policies.

“Most people out there know you can’t tax your way out of the hole Illinois is in,” Wilhour told the South Central Reporter. “But for some reason, in Springfield they can’t seem to see that. It’s always taxes, taxes, taxes. That’s what happens when you don’t make the kinds of structural changes that are needed. You feel like you have to keep taxing everything.”

Wilhour frets that more than a handful of the 250 new laws set to kick in across the state at the start of the year involve new or raised taxes.

“We’re passing laws, just never the right ones,” Wilhour said. “With all these new laws, nothing about them deals in a meaningful way with our out-of-control pension system or rising property taxes. Many of them are just laws that really don’t deal with anything that helps many of our citizens."

Wilhour points to the way the new tax on Uber and Lyft rides in the downtown Chicago is set to more than triple to $3 as a prime example of how government is always getting in its own way.

"All the taxes and all the added regulations do nothing but stifle business,” he said, adding that an increasing number of taxpayers have simply had enough. “People vote with feet. Right now, we’re in a booming economy largely because of what’s happening at the national level, and the one thing they’re doing is slashing regulations. But here in Illinois, we’re moving in the opposite direction. If we could just get in the middle of the pack on some of these regulatory policies, the state could really take off. Until we do something like that, people will continue to flee and our liabilities as a state will continue to grow.”