Supports tax increase

To the Editor:

Illinois has spent its way into a big hole over the years by promising and spending more than it took in. Now it’s time to pay the piper. Budgets cannot be slashed enough to dry up the red ink without serious harm to large segments of our population who cannot help themselves; for example, the disabled.

We must, at least temporarily but probably permanently, increase the state’s income through an increase in income tax. This is not a party-line issue. This is economics.

Please increase the state income tax to 4.5 percent to 5.0 percent and get rid of the earmarks, such as legislative scholarships, bailouts to social groups and churches in Chicago, and all the pork. Selling off state assets to raise cash would be a terrible decision.

Gus Philpott

Woodstock