New Proposal Would Raise Gas Tax

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Feb 18, 2009 4:20PM

In the state where we tax the shit out of everything, there's a new gas tax proposal just waiting to raise our ire. State Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Mike Madigan are co-sponsoring a bill that would raise the tax on a gallon of gas to 27 cents a gallon; motorists currently pay 19 cents a gallon. The reason? To help fund "Grow Illinois", which would pay for debt services and capital improvements the wake of the state's budget shortfall. Another co-sponsor, State Rep. Luis Arroyo, (D-Chicago) said, "No tax for the taxpayers of Illinois is easy. We need infrastructure and we need jobs. Everybody's crying for jobs. There's a lot of people getting laid off. We have to do a capital bill." That raises taxes on people who can't afford to travel to their jobs as it is?

State Sen. Matt Murphy, (R-Palatine) agrees on the capital program funding but doesn't like the tax issue: "It's completely counterintuitive. I haven't seen where raising people's taxes ever created a job." Some lawmakers claim they'll support the new tax increase, but only if the current sales tax we already pay is frozen. Said State Rep. Jack Franks, (D-Woodstock), "If gas goes up to four dollars a gallon again - which it certainly will - when you're paying ten-percent cents sales tax here in Cook County, you're paying another forty cents. If you would knock off that additional sales tax and have it just for gas, I think people could probably get behind that." Don't get too worried as the bill is still in the early stages, but it's something that certainly warrants following.