Green Party "State of the State"

Green Party response to "State of the State" and "State of the Union" addresses.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -  February 1, 2006

Contact: Karen Young, Media Coordinator
773-517-6433 (cell) 312-924-1803 (office)
media@ilgp.org

Rich Whitney, The Illinois Green Party's candidate for Governor, has issued a response to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's State of the State address. Whitney points out that the address "fails to even acknowledge" the failure of Illinois tax policy to solve the state's budget crisis. Illinois is the 6th worst state in the union for regressive taxes - that is, taxing low- and middle-income taxpayers at a higher rate than the wealthy. Whitney says, "Our tax structure is fundamentally unfair...that is the main reason why our state is underfunded, and cannot balance its budget without causing serious harm...to the people."

Whitney points out that Illinois is 48th in education and due to its reliance on property taxes to fund schools, has one of the largest gaps in spending between rich and poor districts.

Whitney supports House Bill 750 and its concept of coupling a general increase in State income tax with tax credits for low- and middle-income taxpayers, to provide badly needed property tax abatements as well as adequately fund our schools. This bill is the product of a genuine people's advocacy group, the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, and the Green Party supports greater involvement by such groups in developing budget policy.

See the entire Whitney response to the "State of the State" at his website,

www.whitneyforgov.org.

See the GPUS video response to the station of the union at the GPUS website: www.gp.org/video/2006stateofunion/