Kudos to the Tribune for printing Dan Montgomery’s article challenging many of the Tribune’s assertions in supporting Gov. Bruce Rauner’s agenda. His quote, “The lowest-earning 20 percent of Illinois taxpayers paid more than 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid only 4.6 percent of their income,” correctly illustrates the income inequality partly responsible for the financial disaster in Illinois.
Rauner has opposed a graduated income tax, a tax on millionaires or a tax on financial transactions. Not only would they adversely affect his income, but his rich friends and supporters would be upset they couldn’t amass more wealth and power. I can just imagine what Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers say: These tax plans would destroy the economy, punish job creators and create a socialist country.
So, we continue to follow “the Republican way”: destroy unions, tax the middle class and poor and allow the fat cats to accumulate more wealth via a rigged system. Then blame Barack Obama and the Democrats.
— Tom Minnerick, Elgin
