Prairie State Wire

Jim Dodge wonders how much longer Illinois taxpayers are willing to be the victims before striking back to use all the power they have in their hands.

“All this frivolous spending on government that shouldn’t be has taxpayers everywhere feeling frustrated and angry,” Dodge told the Prairie State Wire. “People are even more worried about the future because Democrats are only talking about raising taxes even more. Government is greedy and inefficient and people have had enough of it. You just hope that all these emotions will now play out at the ballot box.”

Illinois now has the second highest property taxes in the country, with all the rising costs triggering a domestic migration epidemic that recently saw the state fall out of the country’s top five states with the largest population, a recent Realtor.com survey found.

Mike Frerichs

“If people thought they were getting a good value, maybe they would feel differently; but everyone knows the system is conspiring against them,” said Dodge, who is running as a Republican for state treasurer against incumbent Mike Frerichs in November’s general election. “Right now, people fear that there is no end to the financial madness. People don’t see a clear path forward and my campaign is partly fueled by my anger that the system is gravely hurting everyday Illinoisans.”

Illinois lost nearly 115,000 people to other states, one person every 4.6 minutes, with the overall number over the last eight years swelling to almost 643,000 residents, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

In all, Illinois has lost population over each of the last four years, while none of its neighboring states have experienced any such decline since 2011. 

“I think every lawmaker here in Illinois needs to agree that there will be no new or increased taxes until this state goes on some sort of spending diet and starts cutting expenditures,” Dodge said. “It’s the only way we get Illinois back to being Illinois.”