Welcome to another installment in an occasional series of attempts to contextualize political efforts through arithmetic.
In other words: do the math.
My go-to example is the 2022 suspension of the statewide grocery tax. The General Assembly budgeted $400 million to cover payments to local governments, but the actual cost was $252 million. Figuring a population of 12.5 million, it came to $20.16 per person, almost 39 cents per week.
Today’s topic is the 10-day reduction of sales tax on certain school supplies. Starting Friday and running through Aug. 17, according to a Capitol News Illinois report, “the state’s sales tax on school supplies will be reduced from 6.25% to 1.25%. Items with a lower sales tax will include traditional supplies such as markers and pencils, notebooks and folders and other classroom items” along with clothes and shoes that cost less than $125 per item.
CNI’s Ben Szalinski said the program requires $10 million.
“We can’t control broader inflation in the economy, but there are some things we can do to make life easier,” Gov. JB Pritzker said earlier this week while promoting the plan, which is a decent political posture compared to sending each resident a check for 80 cents.
Szalinski contextualized the $10 million against the $55.9 billion state budget, which makes sense clinically but likely frustrates those who don’t see all those zeroes as basically a rounding error – or the people who figure out the per capita total of $4,472 allocated from every resident.
Obviously these are just basic calculator functions using estimates. Income tax rates affect people and corporations differently, and this sales tax gambit is targeted about as well as possible given the product classifications and time of year (though there is legitimate grumbling about which items are excluded). Shoppers of means might choose to pay the full rate as a strategy for avoiding crowded stores, but for the many Illinoisans watching every penny, this is inarguably a chance to stretch dollars.
But the holiday also follows a quarter-point sales tax increase in Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane and Will counties. That Aug. 1 jump was the General Assembly’s idea for sending more money to the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which isn’t even the most frustrating aspect of the ham-fisted attempt to reform Chicago area public transportation, but warrants mention given the way the timing somewhat undercuts a standard attempt to use voters’ own money as a campaign talking point.
It’s pretty easy to find state-funded programs that could use $10 million, from school construction to nutrition assistance to law enforcement to public health and far, far beyond. If that money isn’t really needed, the tax rate is too high in the first place.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
Top Feeds,Politics
via Shaw Local https://ift.tt/PiNnWea
August 6, 2026 at 10:04AM
Illinois Delivered 