McLean County Times

In an April 23 Facebook post, Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) pointed out something that Democrats in the General Assembly aren't talking about: what he calls the other impact of delaying the automatic gas tax increase.

"Pritzker's gasoline tax hikes doubled the state's gasoline tax in 2019 to 38 cents from 19 cents per gallon, including automatic annual hikes. The election-year package of tax relief includes a 6-month delay in the automatic hike, but that means there will be two hikes in 2023," Caulkins said.

In an April 19 Chalk Talk video posted to Facebook, Caulkins also discussed the delay of the gas tax increase and the temporary suspension of the grocery sales tax.

 "Gov. Pritzker and the Democrats are going to be talking about all the tax relief that they're going to give you for a very short period of time, because the elections in November and they're trying to buy our votes," Caulkins said. "So we went to the grocery store and you look at your grocery bill and it's a 1% sales tax on your groceries. Democrats are going to reduce that, take that away for a year. 1% on a $500 grocery bill – which is about what a monthly grocery bill is – will be $5 not a whole lot, but it's something and we appreciate that, but the bigger news is here at the gas pump."

Caulkins explained the tax cut isn't what it seems.

"Right now we have a 5% sales tax on our gasoline. When we did our budget we figured gas would be about $2 something, $3 a gallon. Well guess what? Gas has been over $4 a gallon for almost a year and the state of Illinois has collected a huge windfall - almost $500 million," Caulkins said. "The Republicans said 'look we've got $500 million of taxpayer money, let's give it back let's suspend the 5% sales tax for six months' – that's 15 cents to 20 cents a gallon back in your pocket, so don't be fooled by these election year tax feeds."

In March, Caulkins blamed Pritzker for high gas prices, and how farmers seem to be paying double for their fuel. In his weekly legislative update, Caulkins said that Pritzker owes Illinois residents a significant cut to the gas taxes and for the cut to be permanent. 

And Caulkins isn't the only Republican sounding the alarm. Gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Darren Bailey is also looking for ways to slow the rising prices of gas. "If the last two years haven't been hard enough with COVID-19 mandates, now residents are having to foot the bill for our government's failures," Bailey said on his website. "It is time we put a stop to this madness and lower our state's taxes to provide the meaningful relief that all hard-working Illinoisans deserve."