By Ray Hanania
Most voters are sick and tired of listening to the majority of candidates vow to address the hot-button issues we face as taxpayers, but never offer a single solution explaining how they will correct the problems once they get into office.
Voters know this, which is why so few voters actually vote. They know the system is broken and that money buys elections and smothers those few candidates who actually offer real solutions.
What’s the biggest problem voters face? Excessive property taxes.
Our property taxes are already outrageously high. But the real problem is that the money we pay doesn’t get used properly. Instead, our government keeps taking more and more from us, raising our property taxes while doing nothing to increase the service we deserve.
That’s why I am supporting Pat Hynes, a Democrat for Cook County Assessor, and Ted Dabrowski, a Republican for Illinois Governor.
Pat Hynes for Cook County Assessor
These two candidates are the only ones addressing the two biggest problems we face in this state, the factors driving the outrageous increases in our property taxes.
Our property tax system is broken. The people responsible don’t want to fix it. Those excessive property taxes you thinka re going to fund public services, are really going to fund the patronage political army that keeps some of these officials in office and pays their outrageously excessive pensions.
In Cook County, the hikes are fueled by poor leadership from the Cook County Assessor’s Office. The other is statewide, and a governor who refuses to address the fact that Illinois is one of the worst states with the highest taxes in the nation.
Think about it. Illinois addresses problems not by addressing them, but rather by throwing money at them. They get that money from your property taxes and they use it to strengthen their political base by giving money to their patronage workers, who get huge pension benefits.
That state environment is the foundation of the problem in Cook County, which controls state politics. If Illinois has a bad tax system, Cook County is even worse.
Fritz Kaegi isn’t telling you what he is doing to reduce property taxes; he’s throwing around deflections, attacking his challenger, Pat Hynes, and accusing him of taking some money from supporters of President Trump.
Why isn’t Kaegi talking about the fact that under his eight-year rule, our property taxes have skyrocketed? Property taxes are driven by the property assessments that Keagi, the Assessor, artificially sets.
It’s a fact. When assessments go up, your property taxes go up, too. Kaegi sets the assessment on your home, and in reality, is setting the property taxes on your home, too.
As I said, Kaegi’s been in office eight years. Why did he wait until now to address the issue of outrageously rising property taxes?
Instead of offering solutions, Kaegi is pointing fingers of blame at everyone else, including Pat Hynes, his challenger.
Hynes served in the county assessor’s office for years, but left after being disgusted by Kaegi’s lack of knowledge. He’s now the Assessor in Lyons Township, where taxpayers there celebrate his leadership.
You will not solve your property tax problems by returning to office a guy like Kaegi, who has done nothing to champion our fight against property tax increases.
I think you should give Hynes a chance to address the problems, and tell Kaegi to stop pointing fingers at everyone else and start taking responsibility for his failure.
Pat Hynes has my strong endorsement for the Democratic Nomination for Cook County Assessor.
Get more information on Pat Hynes by visiting his website at www.assessorhynes.com.
Ted Dabrowski for Illinois Governor
If there are property tax problems in Cook County, you can bet there are tax problems in the State of Illinois. And there are so many tax problems in the State of Illinois, we rank as one of the worst states when it comes to taxes.
Only one candidate is speaking to that problem. That’s Ted Dabrowski, the former president of Wirepoints, where he helped build an Illinois-centric policy research and commentary brand based on straight talk, hard data and fiscal realism. Ted previously worked from 2011 to 2017 at the Illinois Policy Institute, where he served as Spokesman and Vice President of Policy.
Dabrowski is one of four candidates running for the Republican nomination for Illinois governor in the March 17 Republican primary. The winner will face Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is unchallenged in the Democratic primary election.
Pritzker is a part of the machine that runs Illinois, which has one simple policy: If society has a problem, don’t throw solutions at those problems, just throw money at them.
While our system of taxation needs to be reformed, Dabrowski is the only one who has focused on those problems. And he has honed in on the biggest drivers of our outrageous property tax system, the costs of schools
Schools take between 60 and 70 percent of our property taxes, which is a lot of money. You would think that with that much money being poured into our schools, our children would be doing so much better than they are.
The truth is, the average reading proficiency level in our elementary schools is 41 percent statewide. At the high school level, the average is even lower, only 31 percent.
Instead of setting high reading proficiency levels for graduation, the Illinois State Board of Education is seeking to lower them, again. They are basically making D students look like B students by artificially changing the measures.
The manipulation of the data lowers the benchmark and makes it look like students are suddenly smarter.
Dabrowski honed in on a problem that the high schools have.
Too much of the 60 to 70 percent of our property tax money is going into the pockets of herds of high school administrators, and especially to the superintendents who set the policy and run the schools.
Not enough is going to the teachers.
The salaries for these superintendents and administrators is outrageous, hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, plus benefits.
Here’s a chart Dabrowski put together that shows how much money superintendents get, and how little students learn:
Not included, but that should be included, is the superintendent of Consolidated High School District 230 Superintendent Robert Nolting, who currently makes about $300,000 Including wages and benefits) and is set to get another $50,000 increase soon.
Not factored in are the hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid to the army of administrators who “run” the schools.
Dabrowski came up wth a solution, reflected in an interview I did with him and published on one of my news websites, SuburbanChicagoland.com. Click to read the interview.
He points out that Florida has about the same number of schools as Illinois but only about 75 school districts. Illinois has about 850 school districts, each with bloated administrative costs that drain property taxes from our pockets at a mathematically outrageous rate.
With Superintendents earning as much as $450,000 a year, reducing them from 850 to 85 would be one step towards reducing our burden on property taxes and homeowners. That doesn’t include the 30 to 100 high-salaried administrators at each of these schools
It would also create a better system that puts the interests of teachers above
Ted Dabrowski has my strong endorsement for the Republican Nomination for the Republican nomination for Governor of Illinois.
Get more information on his candidacy by visiting his website at www.tedforillinois.com.