As a nurse, I have been on the front lines of the pandemic, working to protect and heal families in our communities.
Our work is sometimes disheartening and so, too, are the efforts being made by the proponents of the Tax Hike Amendment — what it should rightly be called — to drag our profession into their attempt to raise taxes on Illinois families.
For weeks, those pushing the proposed progressive income tax amendment to the Illinois Constitution, including the politicians in Springfield, have suggested that they’re speaking for everyone in a particular community. But the fact is, they’re not.
Their most recent attempt to do so came from the governor’s point man on his tax hike effort, Quentin Fulks. He essentially claimed that Ken Griffin, a wealthy business person and leading opponent of the ballot initiative, somehow pays the same in taxes as nurses like me.
They don’t get it.
That kind of deceit goes to the core of what this fight is all about: trust.
The fact is that most of the people the proponents of the amendment supposedly represent, including nurses like me, don’t trust Springfield politicians with new taxing power.
They have raised taxes on us twice in the last 10 years, and Illinois still has an $8 billion deficit.
Now they want yet another tax hike and tell us it will only affect the rich.
But we know better.
We know that they will come for us next — nurses, farmers, small business owners, middle-class families, and retirees.
The politicians in Springfield are far more comfortable raising our taxes than they are addressing the real issues that affect our state and our families.
And, in case the proponents of this Tax Hike Amendment haven’t noticed, we are in the midst of a health crisis, unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.
We hear the stories of those out of work, and we see the looks of hurt and despair every day.
Take it from me; this is the worst possible time to be talking about raising taxes on anyone.
Nurses like me are grateful that someone like Griffin is standing up for people like us. It’s because of him that those of us who have been cast aside in debates like these now have a voice.
A voice for small business owners who say, “We can’t take another tax hike.”
A voice for retirees who say, “We know they’ll come for us next.”
A voice for nurses on the front lines of the pandemic who say, “We already pay some of the highest taxes in the country. Enough is enough.”
It’s easy for the politicians and their surrogates to lump all nurses into one big group to try to sway voters.
It’s a lot harder to accept the truth, which is that they don’t speak for nurses like me, They can’t be trusted to do that — and they can’t be trusted with this tax amendment either.
Nicole Marszalek is a veteran nurse currently studying for her doctorate of Family Nurse Practitioner.
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