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VOTE ON ELECTION DAY Americans are incredibly lucky to be able to vote, but just 56 percent took advantage of this opportunity in the last presidential election. In contrast, 26 countries have a higher voter turnout, with Belgium topping the list with 87.2 percent of the voting-age population casting ballots. With Election Day coming up, there are several things to remember. It’s not too late to register. Qualified voters can register on Election Day at their polling place. There’s more on the ballot than voting for specific candidates. Judicial retention is on the ballot as well as two propositions. One is an advisory referendum to merge Capital Township with Sangamon County. The other would impose a 1 percent sales tax in Sangamon County for school facilities. This would vastly improve school facilities all over Sangamon County. Please vote yes. The sales tax would not apply to groceries and medicine, cars and trucks, farm equipment or services. Karen Ackerman Witter Springfield
A VORACIOUS ‘APPETITE’ Thank you to all those who turned out for and helped with our second annual “Appetite on The Avenue” food truck event. This great neighborhood event shows there’s a lot of life on “The Avenue,” as North Grand Avenue was known in its heyday as a retail-commercial corridor.
Thank you to our food truck chairman, Sam Cahnman, for your dedicated hard work in putting this great event together two years in a row. Thanks to our food trucks AZ-T-CA, Skippers, Twyford, Roberts and Wafflelicious; our drink vendor, Just the Basics; our musicians, Tom Irwin and Theresa O’Hare; and to Illinois Times for your help spreading the word about “Appetite on the Avenue.” Finally, a big thanks goes out to our partner, Shop ’n Save.
Despite Shop ’n Save’s imminent closing due to a corporate region-wide decision, the great turnout and enthusiasm at “Appetite on the Avenue” shows businesses that if you build it on North Grand, people will come, and with our lower overhead costs, you’ll have greater profits, too. So check out North Grand Avenue ... a great place to do business. Jim Kent President, The Avenue, North Grand Improvement Association
NOT A ‘MILLIONAIRE’ TAX This is in response to Rich Miller’s opinion column in the Oct. 11 edition of Illinois Times (“Why Rauner opposes a graduated income tax”) regarding the Rauner/Pritzker arguments about Illinois adopting a graduated income tax.
Forty-three states have individual income taxes (two of them being only on dividends and interest income) and of those which tax wages and salaries, eight of them have a single tax rate and 33 graduated rates.
Mr. Pritzker would sell the idea of implementing a graduated income tax by assuring 90 or 95 percent of the voters that it won’t affect them – it will only be on the “rich.”
But anyone who has lived in Illinois for long knows what will happen if he succeeds in removing the constitutional prohibition against a graduated income tax – not immediately, but soon. Look at California, which has many more well-paid citizens than Illinois. It has 10 tax rates beginning at 1 percent and going up to 13.30 percent. The first four are 1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent and 4 percent, indeed modest and even less than the present Illinois flat rate. But after 4 percent comes 8 percent (and then 9.30 percent, etc., up to 13.30 percent), and the 8-percent rate applies to a single filer at $42,711 income and to married couples filing jointly at $85,422. Calling it a “millionaire” tax is only a subterfuge to open the door to higher rates on many, if not most, citizens, except retirees. Clark Germann Chatham
