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Central Illinois Gazette

What recession?

Posted by: Tom Kacich

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 9:22 AM

Not every tax increase on the ballot yesterday won, but an amazing number did.

In Champaign County, voters approved a countywide sales tax incresae for school construction and rehabilitation.

In Urbana, voters approved a 15-cent property tax increase for the park district.

In Villa Grove, they OKd a 1 per cent sales tax increase for the city's ambulance service.

In Monticello, a plan to increase taxes to pay for $2 million in bonds for a new swimming pool was approved.

In Vermilion County voters in the Rossville Area Fire Protection District OKd an $820,000 bond issue for a new fire station.

In Peoria County, a quarter-cent sales tax increase to raise $40 million for a $77 million riverfront museum was approved.

In Cass County, a public safety sales tax passed.

In Schuler County, another countywide school sales tax was approved.

In Litchfield a citywide sales tax hike was voted in.

OK, not everything passed. A countywide sales tax for schools in Tazewell County was dumped, 68 percent to 32 percent.

Another countywide school sales tax in Macoupin County lost.

But what does the voter approval of so many tax increases say? The conventional wisdom is that Illinois voters are so fed up with government and so distrustful of it that any kind of tax increase -- statewide or local -- would be in trouble. Further, that a bad economy is precisely the wrong time to raise taxes.

But the evidence, at least from the electorate (at least a small segment of it), suggests otherwise.

Any other opinions?