Letter: Illinois should get rid of the grocery tax

Too many of our politicians have lost sight of what the real problems are for the majority of the citizens of this great country. The evening news and newspaper headlines are missing what is keeping lower- and middle-class families up at night.

Mortgage payments are going up faster than paychecks are. Property tax rates are decreasing but overall property taxes are going up because house values are up.

Local politicians can claim they are lowering your taxes but in reality, you’re paying more because of property values. Even if a family wants to move to a smaller home, they can’t because mortgage interest rates remain high.

Many citizens aren’t able to afford the house they are in, but they can’t buy something smaller because the mortgage rate will remain roughly the same.

Grocery prices are up over 11% over the last three years in Illinois with no indication of them falling back to pre-COVID numbers. The Illinois 1% grocery tax also started back up last year to add insult to injury.

Fuel in Illinois remains .18 above the national average. This is in part of the whopping 45.4 cent gas tax that Illinois imposes on its drivers. The Illinois gas tax is the second highest in the nation.

What can be done? The 1% grocery tax brings in around $400 million to the State of Illinois. Most of that $400 million is used to fund local governments.

Including Illinois, only 13 states in the country have a grocery tax. Gov. Pritzker announced Illinois had a 1.4-billion-dollar surplus in his budget. Illinois should eliminate the grocery tax.

The largest portion of the property tax is from your local school district. The state must do a better job in funding our schools without relying on local property taxes.

Zach Oltmanns, Davis Junction, Ogle County Board

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Letter: Illinois should get rid of the grocery tax