Martin Luther King Jr once said, “budgets are moral documents.” They reveal our priorities and commitments to our people. This rings especially true as the Trump administration freezes billions of dollars in funding for the programs our communities depend on, like health care, education, housing, and food assistance.
At The People’s Lobby, we’re bracing for the impact of Trump’s “Big Bad Bill,” which will make it much more difficult for working families to make ends meet. And if that weren’t enough, billionaires and giant corporations are cashing in on massive new tax breaks from Washington while the rest of us are left holding the bag.
Illinois is at a crossroads. Governor JB Pritzker’s recent budget address told a precarious story — one that makes clear our state cannot afford to stand still.
Alongside our partners in the Illinois Revenue Alliance, we’re calling on Governor Pritzker and the General Assembly to go further. We must fully fund our schools, health care, and social services to keep our most vulnerable neighbors safe.
Taking It to Amazon’s Front Door
On January 28th, hundreds of us showed up at Chicago’s Amazon Headquarters to send a clear message to Governor Pritzker and state leadership: make billionaires pay their fair share. We were joined by State Senators Robert Peters, Karina Villa, Lakesia Collins, and State Representative Lindsay LaPointe.
“We are here because the tax system in Illinois is broken,“ said Erica Bland, executive vice president at SEIU HCII. “And we want to make sure there are people who will stand with us, heroes not villains, that are going to make sure people have the services that they need and not continue to take resources from our state at the expense of people who need it the most.”
Corporate villains like Amazon exploit loopholes that let them dodge billions in state taxes even as they post record profits. Meanwhile, they underpay their workers and leave our communities to cover the cost.
As a former health care worker, State Sen. Collins spoke about how cuts will impact families trying to make ends meet. “People like [Jeff] Bezos, and other billionaires alike, you better pay your damn fair share.”
The choice for our leaders is simple. They can side with the powerful corporations and billionaires who rig the system against families, or they can be heroes, closing corporate loopholes and making the ultra-rich pay what they owe.
The Solutions Are on the Table
On February 4, the Illinois Revenue Alliance joined State Senators Graciela Guzman, Lakesia Collins, Karina Villa, Robert Peters, and Robert Martwick at the Illinois State Capitol to announce a bold slate of revenue measures. Together, these proposals would generate more than $4 billion in new revenue without reaching into the pocketbooks of working families.
Here’s what’s on the table:
- A Billionaire Wealth Tax: A “mark-to-market” tax on billionaire asset appreciation would ensure that extreme wealth growth is taxed the same way wages are. This is estimated to raise $916 million in FY27 alone.
- A Digital Advertising Tax: A 10% tax on digital ad revenue from the largest Big Tech corporations profiting off Illinoisans’ personal data would generate an estimated $1.1 billion in FY27.
- Worldwide Combined Reporting: Closing the loophole that lets multinational corporations shift profits to offshore tax havens would raise an estimated $1.2 billion annually.
- Closing Corporate Loopholes: Rolling back costly Trump-era tax giveaways and long-standing business loopholes would generate roughly $700 million per year.
“Most people feel stuck in America, not on an island, not on a yacht, but in their homes,” said State Sen. Robert Peters at the press conference. “We need to take the money from these ultra-rich billionaires and make it so less people have to go to a food pantry. Make it so a safety net hospital is able to stay open…We cannot cut services for people.”
Illinois currently has the 8th most unequal tax system in the nation. Billionaires, Big Tech, and corporations like Amazon have spent years gaming the tax code by siphoning billions out of our state while their workers rely on Medicaid and SNAP just to get by.
“Working families pay a much higher tax rate than most billionaires, big tech, and corporations like Amazon — who pay their workers so little that many of them rely upon state public assistance programs to survive,” said State Senator Graciela Guzmán. “They are hopeful that in the fear and chaos of everything the Trump administration is yielding in our communities…that we in the state of Illinois won’t connect these dots — that we will fail to fix our broken tax system and resort to cutting services for working families instead of forcing the very rich to pay what they owe.”
As homecare worker and SEIU Healthcare Illinois member Jenny Smith put it: “With the Trump administration attacking working families by going after Medicaid, SNAP, childcare funding, and other crucial programs — all so he can give bigger tax breaks to billionaires like himself and Jeff Bezos — we need our elected leaders to step forward and do the right thing.”
What You Can Do
The General Assembly is in session, and our lawmakers need to hear from us.
Send a letter to your state representative today.
Tell them that Illinois families are counting on bold leadership to act on them. Working people didn’t create this crisis. Together, we can make sure we’re not the ones who end up paying for it.