Dupage Policy Journal

Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Westmont) hosted a video webinar on March 3 to address Illinois’ gas tax and infrastructure.

“I voted against a piece of legislation recently because I was very concerned that there were some funds that were going to be diverted from the road fund,” she said during the virtual event. “We also voted for — and I certainly voted for this in 2019 — a historic rebuild of Illinois infrastructure and capital improvement plan called ‘Rebuild Illinois.’ That’s a situation where we’ve had, again, desperate need for some infrastructure improvements and infrastructure funding in the state of Illinois, so I’m very glad that we have that Rebuild Illinois program, so we can finally start investing some of the funds that we need into necessary infrastructure.”

In a ranking of each state's infrastructure, U.S. News placed Illinois 26th overall, and 31st for transportation infrastructure.

When Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019, he more-than doubled the Illinois gas tax from 19 cents to 38 cents, costing Illinois taxpayers an additional $1.3 billion every year, Illinois Policy reported. Pritzker also instituted an automatic, annual gas tax increase. Before Pritzker took office, Illinoisans paid the tenth-highest gas tax in the nation. Pritzker's policies pushed Illinois to the third-highest gas tax.

Pritzker tweeted on Feb. 5, “Suspending the state’s grocery tax is a simple, straightforward way to assist Illinoisans. It’s just one part of our balanced budget proposal that does right by the working families across our state.”