The Illinois legislature responded to the state’s ongoing fiscal crisis by—what else?—voting to hike the state income tax by a third, from over 3-and-a-half percent to nearly 5 percent. Republican governor Bruce Rauner fought against the budget, denouncing what he accurately described as a 32 percent increase in the tax rate.
That caused no little confusion for Rep. Emanuel Chris Welch of Illinois’s 7th District, who tweeted the following outraged tweet: “Our tax rate increased 1.2 percentage points. Not 32% as Rauner wants you to believe! #knowthefacts #BudgetNow #Compromise.” Attached to the tweet was a graphic that read, “The Illinois Income Tax Increase goes from 3.75% (where it is now) to 4.95%. A 1.20% increase, NOT 32% as Rauner says!”
After much online chortling at Welch’s innumeracy, the tweet was eventually deleted. But we wouldn’t blame citizens of Illinois if the mockery endured.
Much has been written about Illinois’s massive financial woes, problems largely the result of Democratic machine pols canoodling with corrupt unions for decades. But The Scrapbook humbly submits another reason for Illinois’s problems: trouble doing math.
