Will County Gazette

Two tax-increase proposals on the ballot this November are not what the state needs, according to state House candidate Rick Laib of the 86th District. 

“I understand it,” Laib said in an interview with the Will County Gazette. "I get it, but I just don’t agree with it."

One of the proposals Laib referred to would have residents in Ford, Lake, Kane, Will and several other counties approve a 1-percent hike in sales taxes to help fund local school districts, according to a report from the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI).

State Rep. Lawrence Walsh Jr. (D-Joliet)

As the IPI points out, some of the nation’s highest tax rates are already afflicting residents. Laib said this could contribute to another of the state’s problems: outmigration.

“Illinois leadership has long encouraged residents to leave the state by way of making it financially difficult to live here,” he said. “Now the income received by way of taxation will not sustain our financial demands, so more and higher taxes will be required.”

Another ballot measure up for consideration in November has to do with a tax hike suggested by the Federal Reserve to reverse the state’s unfunded pension liabilities. During the next three decades, the proposal would increase property taxes 50 percent each year, the DuPage Policy Journal said.

“This is an unsustainable approach,” Laib said. “The approach is employed to accommodate the already-in-place high-tax-encouragement for people departing. Raising taxes will not encourage taxpayers to stay – rather it will encourage the opposite.”

Laib, a past member of the U.S. Army Reserves who currently serves as a sergeant with the Will County Sheriff’s Office, will face incumbent state Rep. Lawrence Walsh Jr. (D-Joliet) in the upcoming general election. The 86th District includes all of Will County, and the cities of Crest Hill, Joliet and Lockport.

He offered a parting piece of advice for the state.

“Illinois must learn to live within its financial means,” he said. “Failing to do so will most assuredly cement ourselves on the path of un-rescuable bankruptcy.”