I never thought I’d see the day that I’d read this in the paper: “…the crowd turned to face the Capitol and shouted ‘Raise my taxes.'”

A rally of 15,000 people from throughout the state roared in anger and frustration outside the state Capitol on Wednesday, protesting budget cuts affecting education and social services…. Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, co-sponsored legislation in the Senate calling for increasing the state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent.

That’s right, a crowd of Illinois residents, including many from Peoria, descended on Springfield yesterday imploring lawmakers to raise their taxes — and not a little bit, either. Going from three to five percent is a 67% increase.

Raising taxes in order to maintain/increase spending is not the answer. Instead, reforms should be made to the pension system, and programs like FamilyCare/AllKids need to be means-tested. There are undoubtedly some programs that could be cut completely.

If anyone thinks that more money is the answer, look no further than the lottery. Remember that? The lottery was going to help schools! Well, they kept their promise. The proceeds from that tax on the poor did go to schools, but then they reduced other spending on schools by a commensurate amount, so it was a zero-sum bargain — an accounting trick. They found other ways to use the net increase in funds, and it wasn’t to help schools.

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that people would ask to have their taxes raised. After all, they voted for an increase in their sales taxes here locally in the middle of a recession to pay for a non-essential boondoggle. I guess it really is better here — residents have money to burn.