Coronavirus raises stakes for Fair Tax

Excerpted from Vote Yes for Fairness.

A new article in the Chicago Tribune by Rick Pearson highlights how the coronavirus crisis has raised the stakes for the passage of the Fair Tax in November.

As Vote Yes For Fairness Chairman Quentin Fulks says in the piece, the Fair Tax is needed now more than ever because it will generate “additional revenue that we’re going to need to fund things like social services that a number of people who most likely got hit the hardest during the pandemic depend on.”
 
University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor David Merriman echoes that statement, saying that the additional revenue will fund services for “people with more moderate or lower income (who) are probably going to be hurt worse than those of us who are more fortunate.” Merriman also addresses a number of opponents’ favored talking points against the Fair Tax, calling them out for lacking evidence to back them up.
 
The Fair Tax has always been about creating a tax system that works for all Illinoisans and putting our state on the path to fiscal sustainability, and it’s clear that is needed more than ever in the wake of this pandemic.

“There is nothing new or changed or different about the effect of the graduated income tax during this moment than there was four or five months ago, before we knew about this pandemic, other than that I think it’s needed perhaps now more than ever,” Gov. Pritzker said at a recent coronavirus news briefing.

“We very much need to alleviate some of the burden on the working class and middle class and people who are striving to get to the middle class and to also pay for the services that the state has and needs to provide—as well as to deal with the structural deficit that already existed in this state, not to mention now the shortfall that will exist as a result of the attack of the coronavirus.”