* Gov. JB Pritzker was asked about Ald. Sigcho-Lopez’s recent criticism that the governor isn’t doing enough to tax the rich. His response seemed to contradict itself. First, he said…
By the way, the governor is not the one who ultimately proposes those bills or even signs them. When it’s an amendment to the Constitution, the governor really has almost nothing to do with it other than perhaps advocacy.
And then, in defense of his own history, Pritzker said…
The very first thing that I did, or one of the very first things that I did in office, was propose and ask the General Assembly to put on the ballot the amendment that would have a graduated income tax in the state.
Um.
* More from his response…
I think it’s something that is being talked about by members of the General Assembly. We’ll have to see if it gets proposed. It’s not something that’s been a priority for me going into the next session. We clearly want to make sure first that we are looking at finding efficiencies in government. That’s always the very, very first thing. But I do think a graduated system is better than a flat tax system, and so if there’s a possibility for us to have a system like that, it’s better than the one we have.
