* This sure seemed like a long week, but we all had a lot of fun. I did anyway. I’m done now, though. I hear it’s nice outside. I’m gonna go check it out.
* This takes a minute or so to get going, but it’s well worth the wait. From Uncle Tupelo’s last show…
There was a time
You could put it out of your mind
Leave it all behind
There was a time
That time is gone
* Gov. Quinn was on Fox Chicago’s “Good Day Chicago” program this morning and wound up debating Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman.
Tillman made one claim that is just way out of whack. He claimed that reducing state worker salaries to private sector levels would save $3 billion. Huh? That’s about equal to the payroll for all state employees.
Anyway, give it a watch…
*** UPDATE *** Gov. Quinn is meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times edit board and the CS-T is live tweeting…
# Feb. 2 date is “designed to protect incumbents.”
# Quinn seeks later primary - 3rd Tuesday of June - to cut down on money-raising malfeasance. Primary is currently Feb. 2.
More…
Quinn: Business community may be willing to accept tax increase in trade for public pension reform/tax.
* From the Wall Street Journal comes this goofy rant comparing Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed tax hike to the Art Institute’s plan to charge higher ticket prices…
To put this in perspective, let’s say the family of four cited by Alderman Burke has a taxable income of $60,000, slightly less than the regional median after accounting for exemptions. Illinois has a flat tax, so the Quinn hike of 1.5% would be applied to every dollar of taxable income. The family’s annual tax bill would rise by $900–enough to pay for more than a dozen trips to the Art Institute even at the higher ticket prices that have Burke so outraged.
Um, no. A family of four with an adjusted gross income of $60,000 would pay $60 more per year - which is not even one family outing to the Art Institute at the proposed higher rate of $18 per person (or four trips to the Illinois State Fair at its newly proposed rate).
And in the unlikely event that he’s talking about state exemptions in that piece, the mythical family of four would get $24,000 in exemptions, meaning the family’s federally adjusted gross income (remember, that’s adjusted, not simple gross) would be $84,000 ($60,000 plus the non-taxed $24,000 in state exemptions), so their tax hike would be $420.
Stay-at-home mom Bonnie Tondini of Mazon is concerned. With what her husband currently earns, the family is barely staying ahead, she said.
“We’re living month-to-month right now, and if the governor raises taxes any more, I don’t know if we will. I’m willing to go get a job and everything, but I’ve go kids, and day care is so expensive,” she said Wednesday.
“I’ve got to be honest - I don’t know what we’ll do if he does.”
I feel for this person, but how many more dollars will she really have to pay under Quinn’s plan? We have absolutely no clue by reading that story.
“I have legal bills, to the tune of $400,000″ [Burris said]
* Jeff Jarvis annihilates the argument that newspapers could charge for online content…
The Wall Street Journal example is also a bit of a red herring. We should view the pay model with suspicion precisely because that is the only example ever raised. I repeat: Its subscription fees are paid on expense accounts. And I would love to see a full accounting of the revenue from joint subscriptions — print and online — that are attributed to each medium. I’d also like to see the cost of subscriber acquisition marketing, churn management and customer relations. Again, let’s look at the complete financial projections. […]
You say that “smart people” will pay for “unique and valuable information.” How much of that can a paper produce in a day? For that matter, how much of that do papers produce now? As I travel across the country, I have been picking up wafer-thin local papers — on paper — that are filled with Associated Press and syndicated copy, rewrites of commodity news I already know, fluffy features and “news” that began life as press releases.
Now is the time to be bluntly honest: What is the real value of newspapers as they are made today? What are they worth?
Newspaper publishers have decided that eliminating journalists and dumbing down their product by running more photos, much shorter stories and lots of canned copy is the best way to run their industry. And now some of them think they can charge money for that?
Private security guards patrolling three Far South Side commercial strips would be empowered to write tickets — for everything from parking and moving violations to loitering, littering and graffiti — under a groundbreaking plan that faces strong resistance from rank-and-file Chicago Police officers.
The controversial idea comes at a time when City Hall is slowing police hiring and violent crime is up. […]
Chicago Fraternal Order of Police officials called it a dangerous idea they will “fight all the way.'’
“They’re not helping us,'’ FOP third vice president Greg Bella said. “When you put somebody out there who does not know the job, it makes double work for us.'’
There’s no doubt that the Cook County sales tax remains horribly unpopular. The tax hike pushed the county into the “highest in the nation” category, and the anger was multiplied many times over by Cook County President Todd Stroger’s gross public ineptness and the often overly harsh media coverage of his administration.
The Sun-Times has blasted Stroger for his tax hike, endorsed Mike Quigley for Congress mainly because of his fight against Stroger’s tax increase, but praised Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday for his honesty when proposing an income tax increase.
Huh?
The Tribune has overreacted against the governor’s tax increase, but it overreacted to Stroger’s tax hike, so at least it’s consistent.
Anyway, legislators are obviously spooked at the reaction to the county tax hike, and would undoubtedly like to deflect voter anger away from them and onto a convenient scapegoat like Todd Stroger. So we get unfunded populist mandates like this bill, which passed the House Executive Committee yesterday…
Cook County’s widely reviled sales tax increase would be rolled back and future hikes restricted under a plan that narrowly passed an Illinois House committee Thursday.
As proposed, lawmakers would undo the 1 percentage point increase the Cook County Board approved last year and force the board to go to voters if members want to reinstate it.
Suburban Cook County lawmakers of both parties have been calling for the rollback as the tax increase pushed by County Board President Todd Stroger has riled suburban officials, businesses and taxpayers who see shoppers flocking to neighboring retailers where taxes are lower.
The House Executive Committee, which is controlled by Democrats, approved the rollback 6-5, sending it on to the full House. Its future there, however, is politically dubious.
Talk about an unfunded mandate. Plus, if members vote for this bill, shouldn’t they also ask for a citizens’ referenda before raising any state taxes?
As noted in the story, the bill is probably not going to make it to the governor’s desk, but it gives legislators a chance to rant and rave about someone else and raise false hopes amongst the angry populace.
Not even the promise of $3 billion in federal stimulus aid could avert hundreds of teacher layoffs announced this month in schools across the Chicago area.
School districts from Grayslake to Romeoville and West Aurora have authorized pink slips for educators, social workers, librarians and support staff—cuts the recovery package was specifically intended to avoid.
Many of the area’s top educators say they are still unsure how much of the federal windfall they will get after it filters through a state government beset by its own financial troubles.
Illinois could face an $11.5 billion shortfall. And while Gov. Pat Quinn this week proposed an income tax hike and fee hikes on everything from license plates to cigarettes, many school veterans worry a shell game could ensue where the stimulus money supplants other state funding, defeating what they believe was the intent of the investment. [emphasis added]
The governor’s defenders say he’s using the stimulus money exactly as intended - to ward off cuts to education spending. That assumes, of course, that he would’ve cut education spending. Not terribly likely. What the governor’s defenders don’t say is the stimulus money is also supposed to be used to help local school boards avoid cuts. That clearly won’t happen.
I’m also not sure why the Trib article claims that there is some vague worry about a “shell game,” when the governor’s proposal clearly uses 90 percent of the $2 billion federal education stimulus money to balance the state’s operating budget.
* As I’ve said before, Pat Quinn’s populist politics are not all that different from Rod Blagojevich’s, except that Quinn is far more honest and sincere. Check this out…
Quinn, in an interview with WGN-AM 720… suggested state lawmakers and other statewide elected officials consider taking a pay cut while the state is in economic distress.
“I really think that government officials in the executive branch where I am and the legislative branch should look closely at doing that,” Quinn said of a pay cut. “It’d have to be a law reducing pay, but I think that’s worth looking at, at least temporarily.”
But aides to Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) said such moves would only be symbolic and wouldn’t address the real need to curb a projected $11.5 billion deficit.
Cullerton spokeswoman Rikeesha Phelon said that although “everything is negotiable,” the Senate president would say “pay cuts from legislators get us no closer to our goals. It may pay off in PR credits, but it’s not a real solution.”
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said: “All of these nickel-dime ideas don’t serve any purpose” toward eliminating the debt, whether they are suggested by “a political person, a news organization or some self-appointed community civics expert.”
If this was Rod Blagojevich, we’d say he was publicly flogging legislators to shield himself from criticism about his revenue plan. So far, Quinn has been pretty good about avoiding potshots at the GA, but this is not a good sign. It plays right into the anger of folks like this person who sent me an e-mail yesterday afternoon…
…I do not see our elected representatives suffering, or hurting. In fact they have some great benefits, and I have heard nothing of them having to sacrifice anything as of yet.
Expect to hear more of that now.
…Adding… I put this into comments and then realized I should’ve included it here. From the Illinois Constitution…
A member shall receive a salary and allowances as provided by law, but changes in the salary of a member shall not take effect during the term for which he has been elected.
So, legislative salaries cannot be decreased until their next terms, which for most begins January of 2011. Hopefully, the economy will be out of this mess by then. They could take voluntary cuts, of course, but their salaries cannot be legally altered during this term.
* Meanwhile, Phil Kadner brings up an interesting point…
What if you finally got an honest politician and discovered you really disliked the way he ran the government? Would you rather have the honest politician or a dishonest one, even a crook, who did what you wanted him to do?
He concludes…
I think Quinn is honest. But I’m not sure that automatically makes him a good governor.
I think a tax hike is needed. I don’t like the way Quinn is spending some of that money.
But what do I really want? What do you really want?
Do you really want an honest governor who tries to do the right thing? What if he honestly believes the right thing to do is raise taxes?
Just maybe, the governor we want is the person that we’ve always elected in the past.
People love being told that they can get something for nothing and that somebody else will pay the piper. Rod Blagojevich, like quite a few recent presidents, was great at that game. The “Working families should not be taxed more,” mantra is perhaps the most overused pander in the book. Working families drive on the roads, take the trains, send their kids to public schools, etc. Somehow, they now feel entitled to do all that without paying anything extra.
Here’s most of the rest of that e-mail I received yesterday…
You have a lot of contact with the almighty state government in Springfield. So I pose this question to you. Do they realize that we are sick of having to bail out the state all the time?
The state it seems cannot hold up their end of the bargain on so many things. Then when they are up against the wall when it comes to bills, pension funds, infrastructure, they ask us to shoulder the burden of their mistakes.
Why do we have to suffer for their inability to take care of their own bills, their flagrant spending and general inability to do anything useful with the power given them it seems?
I reminded this person that the state government is him. This state elected Rod Blagojevich twice and George Ryan once. Legislators have been reelected time and time again. “Their” bills are his bills.
City Hall’s inspector general has begun investigating how at least three city pension funds came to make investments with a firm co-owned by a nephew of Mayor Richard Daley, the Tribune has learned.
The office of Inspector General David Hoffman has subpoenaed records from the pension funds dealing with their investments of tens of millions of dollars in DV Urban Realty Partners, a real estate investment firm formed by a top Daley ally, Allison Davis, and Daley nephew Robert Vanecko. […]
The inspector general’s office also subpoenaed information that the pension funds’ trustees reviewed before investing with DV Urban Realty, suggesting investigators are trying to learn how the decisions were made and whether they were influenced by Vanecko’s relationship with the mayor, the source said.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that gubernatorial pardons based on convicts’ innocence do not automatically clear their criminal record — a decision some attorneys said would cause their clients undue anguish.
The ruling involves pardons that declared two men, Stanley Howard and Dana Holland, innocent of violent crimes and could have been the first step to officially wiping away their convictions. But when the men took steps to expunge their records, judges said no.
“When we have a declaration of innocence, we should be trying to make it easy for that person to clear their record, not harder,” said Daniel, of Northwestern University School of Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.
Mayor Daley’s plan to outline spending for Chicago’s $1 billion cut of the federal stimulus pie without consulting aldermen came under fire today — and so did the surprise decision to re-pave the streets surrounding Washington Park, site of a temporary Olympic stadium.
* Olympic dispute: Ald. Sandi Jackson says focus on pothole-plagued roads first, not Olympic sites
The law is intended to deter housing fraud, which often involves forging a property owner’s signature on a deed and selling the property illegally. Sellers also must provide valid photo identification. The thumbprints will not be public records.
* I’ve neglected to do anything regarding this terribly tragic news, so here it is now…
Three Illinois Army National Guard soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, the Department of Military Affairs has confirmed.
Sgt. Christopher Abeyta, 23; Spc. Robert Weinger, 24 and Spc. Norman Cain III, 22, were all assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 178th Infantry based in Woodstock. An active-duty Airman from Tucson, Ariz., was also killed in the incident
Specialist Cain died at the scene of the incident in Kot; Abeyta and Weinger were transported to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where they later died.
* Labor unions representing state government workers and teachers are obviously not happy. Yesterday’s announcement by the IFT that it would withhold endorsements from anyone voting for the “pension cuts” was a hugely controversial post here. We have more today…
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said Quinn is trying to balance the state’s budget problems on the backs of rank-and-file workers. The combination of Quinn initiatives would cost an employee earning $35,000 a year more than $2,500, AFSCME said.
* AFSCME says the pension changes are subject to negotiations…
Quinn chief of staff Jerry Stermer indicated some of the changes could go through even despite union opposition. […]
State employee unions insist the Quinn administration needs their approval for the changes. Stermer said the administration wants to negotiate with the unions, but administration officials believe the pension changes can go ahead as long as lawmakers approve them.
The same question is under examination for health insurance, Stermer said.
“If I were AFSCME, I sure wouldn’t open up the contract for negotiations,” said James Nowlan, a senior fellow for the Institute for Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. “What do they have to gain by doing that? This is a nonstarter.”
* A week ago today, Gov. Quinn spoke to the Illinois Education Association and was greeted with a loud standing ovation…
“I think you will see from the budget address next week that I’m willing to stick my neck out and take big chances on behalf of the kids of Illinois, their parents, their teachers …” he said.
Ken Swanson, the IEA state president, responded…
“If you’re willing to stick your neck out and take the lead, we’ll have your back,” he promised.
“Instead of making certain the state meets its obligations to the state pension systems, the governor is asking that the scheduled funding request will be reduced by two-thirds, exacerbating the underfunding of the Teachers Retirement System and the other state systems.
“Instead of offering a plan to fix the state’s broken school funding system, Gov. Quinn allows the current system to stand, even though children in every part of the state are being denied the opportunity for a high quality education due to inadequate funding.
“Instead of directing that the federal stimulus funds be used as President Obama intended, to preserve jobs and programs in public education, Gov. Quinn would use these one-time funds to balance the state budget.
“Instead of supporting efforts to make sure the best and brightest continue to choose education as a career, Gov. Quinn is proposing retirement disincentives that surely will drive some highly qualified young people away from a career in education.
“The governor’s proposal is unacceptable to the 133,000 members of the Illinois Education Association.
Skimming all but about $200 million of the $2 billion in federal education stimulus money is the most underreported aspect of this budget, by far.
* The IFT blasted the governor’s plan to skip billions in state pension payments…
“When the people of Illinois removed Gov. Blagojevich from office, they expected to bid farewell to his budget gimmicks,” IFT president Ed Geppert Jr. said.
Oof.
* The Sun-Times was also critical of the pension skim…
Switching to a two-tiered system would reduce future pension costs but it wouldn’t lower the $73 billion already owed.
For that reason, we were disappointed to see that Quinn wants to make only a $1.5 billion pension payment for next year. Under a 1995 law, the state is supposed to pay $4 billion. That’s unfair to state employees who have faithfully paid their share. The state must either pay that bill or revise the payment schedule. A more reasonable schedule might lower the annual payment to a flat rate — it increases each year — and extend it over a longer period of time.
Quinn, you’ll recall, promised a budget free of gimmicks. That didn’t happen.
State government’s greatest problem going forward is its huge unfunded pension burden. Quinn’s proposals to raise the retirement age for new hires, and to ask current employees to pay an additional 2 percentage points toward retirement, are a good start on pension reform. But he’s going to skip some payments into the pension system, and we need to know what burden that puts on the state in the near future. Grade, including extra points for having the courage to go there: A-.
* Individual taxpayers aren’t the only ones upset with Gov. Quinn’s tax hike plan. Business is furious…
“If this plan were passed, Illinois would have the 5th highest corporate income tax rate in the nation, though we would be close to tied for second. Illinois at 9.7% would be surpassed only by Iowa at 12%, Minnesota at 9.8%, Pennsylvania at 9.99%, and DC at 9.975%. (All three of these states have graduated taxes, but the rates shown are the highest rate for that state.)
“This, in combination with lost incentives, would be one more reason for employers to look elsewhere to avoid Illinois’ long‐standing anti‐business climate.”
“I would say that before we move forward on any tax increases, Illinoisans want to know how we’re going to clean up Illinois government,” said influential Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, in an interview with a downstate public television station.
“If taxes are needed to raise more revenue, I’m deeply worried about hurting the middle class, who are struggling,” said [Attorney General Lisa Madigan], the daughter of the House speaker. “And so all steps should be taken to make sure that their taxes aren’t increased.”
Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is exploring a bid for the U.S. Senate next year, said that if the public is asked to “make more sacrifices” in paying higher taxes, “property-tax relief is essential.” An aide to Comptroller Dan Hynes, who also is looking at moving up the political ladder, called the budget plan “a starting point.”
Secretary of State Jesse White, who is looking at running for a fourth term, noted Quinn’s call for higher fees on motorists and said, “Within my [driver’s licensing] facilities, I have a disclaimer to remind the people that I didn’t do it.”
This page has already expressed support for Quinn’s deeply unpopular income tax increase.
No one wants it, but Illinois needs it desperately. For years, state revenue has not matched expenses — and not simply because of reckless spending.
* Zorn smacks down Rod Blagojevich’s recent criticisms…
But for many years, Blagojevich had been running up a tab at Café Illinois without having the money to pay for it—using budget gimmicks and deferred payments to disguise that the state was spending and creating financial obligations lots faster than money was coming in.
“He was maxing us out on our credit cards,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a tax-policy watchdog organization. “He never fixed the structural problems that are compounding this current economic crisis.”
In a WGN-AM 720 interview Wednesday, Roosevelt University political scientist Paul Green compared Blagojevich to an arsonist who sets a house ablaze then complains from the safety of the sidewalk that the firefighters are wasting water.
Opposing tax and fee increases is the cornerstone of their 2010 campaign strategy.
This stock quote House Republicans sent to the media on behalf of state Rep. Renee Kosel (R-New Lenox) captures exactly what I mean:
“While it is true that Illinois is facing one of the largest budget deficits, turning to taxpayers to get us out of this mess is not the answer. I was hoping that Governor Quinn would have the courage to abort the tax and spend policy of the Blagojevich administration. We need some accountability for the state programs already in existence. We need to re-evaluate, to go back to the table and ask ourselves which state programs are worth funding and which could be eliminated,” Kosel said.
If all we need to do is “go back to the table,” why haven’t legislators done that at some point during the last year as the budget crisis mounted? Instead, they wait for the governor to offer solutions to the state’s problems, and then they excoriate him?
* Democratic Sen. Michael Frerichs does a good job of summing up the no-won situation that Democrats find themselves in here…
“Give me a scenario this year where a Democrat in a tough district wouldn’t be sweating it out,” Frerichs said. “Would I be sweating making billions in budget cuts? Would I be sweating if we were voting again on a gross receipts tax? Would I be sweating if we were talking about expanded gambling at a time when gambling revenues are weak? To those concerned about Democrats in tough districts sweating it out I say, what sort of budget would be easy for us to pass this year? Every month you see declining revenues coming into the state, you realize that this isn’t going to be easy.”
* Republican Rep. Chapin Rose gets a bit hyperbolic, but his response was not atypical…
Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, credited Quinn with coming up with a funding source for his spending plans.
“Unlike Rod Blagojevich, who just came up with ideas to spend more money but didn’t suggest ways to pay for it, at least we’ve got a funding source on the table,” Rose said, “but after looking at the (income) tax rates and all the tax increases proposed, the average Joe isn’t going to have anything left for his family to spend after this. The Democrats continue to fail to control spending.”
* The Taxpayers Federation of Illinois points to something that I had also noticed this morning…
* Sweetened Tea and Coffee Drinks will be taxed as Soft Drinks
* Tax all grooming and hygiene products at the same rate (presumably the high rate)
That means the full sales tax will be expanded to those items. It’s not a huge thing, but in Chicago and Cook County where the sales tax is a hot topic, it won’t go over well.
Also, from TFI, business won’t like this…
* Decouple from the following provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
o Deferral of gain recognition from reacquisition of business debt security
o Five year carry-back of net operating losses by small businesses
* I hadn’t noticed this aspect of Gov. Quinn’s proposed “back to school” sales tax holiday for clothes and school supplies…
Pete Gill of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association said the group likes the theory, but not the specifics, of the governor’s proposal for a 10-day sales tax holiday for back-to-school purchases in August.
Gill said a preliminary analysis of the budget indicates Quinn would pay for the holiday by cutting a 1.75 percent “sales tax allowance” for merchants by more than half. Retailers are reimbursed for collecting state sales taxes.
“It hurts retailers and could potentially raise prices,” Gill said.
Retailers are gonna freak out about losing half of their sales tax allowance. In times like these, when retailers are closing in droves, that will be met with super-stiff resistance.
Kim Clarke Maisch, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business in Illinois, said about 85 percent of small-business owners, including in Illinois, pay the individual rather than corporate tax rates.
Admission to the Illinois State Fair would increase by $2 per person, to $5 for adults and to $2 for children, who have been admitted free in recent years.
A new advisory board will scour the budget for line-item savings. Outsourcing food, janitorial, technology and other services more economically supplied by private employers ought to be a priority. We hoped Quinn would give privatization of these high-cost internal services a push. He can do better. Grade: D+ .
* Is tripling the state’s income tax exemption really necessary? We’ve already got a pretty darned low income tax, and it would still be somewhat low after the proposed increase. And then there’s this…
Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to raise the personal income tax exemption to $6,000 from $2,000 per person would make Illinois’ exemption one of the most generous in the nation. Only Connecticut’s $13,000 exemption is more generous. But Connecticut does not apply its exemption to dependents. In addition, Connecticut’s exemption decreases as income increases. Illinois’ is static for all incomes. Therefore, Illinois’ $6,000 per person exemption would top Connecticut’s for a three-person household. A taxpayer does not pay tax on exempted income.
* Sen. James Meeks told Mark Brown what several other legislators were saying yesterday, or at least part of it. Not everybody says that the tax hike is too small, but the exemptions are very contentious…
“The tax increase is too small,” Meeks said. “The exemption is too great.”
Increasing the personal exemption to $6,000 from $2,000, as Quinn proposes, “has not been on anybody’s radar screen,” Meeks complained. “It has no allies.”
He’s right that nobody in the GA has ever really talked about the exemption increase. It’s just way too new to be digested quickly. More…
A partial solution, Meeks says, would be for the state to pass legislation committing itself to use the new income tax revenues for schools by the third year after it takes effect — allowing two years to clear up the deficit.
That might not be a bad compromise, especially if there was something in the law about reducing property taxes, or even sales taxes.
* Quinn’s defense of the increased exemptions and a challenge to his critics…
“It is a principal as old as the bible,” Quinn said. “Taxes should be based on ability to pay.”
Acknowledging growing opposition to his tax hike plans, Quinn warned his foes that they need to come up with better solutions to the state’s damaging shortfall.
“You must tell the people of Illinois what you will do instead,” Quinn said to cheers from lawmakers, adding later, “Saying ‘No’ is not enough unless you are willing to speak the truth and offer real alternatives.”
Quinn has tried to soften the blow by raising the income tax exemption to $6,000 from the current $2,000.
While that would mean a family of four making $25,000 would see a dramatic reduction in state income tax, a single person making $20,000 would see a big increase.
Not to rain on anybody’s parade, but if 5 million Illinois citizens will come out ahead in this budget, as Quinn contends, that means another 8 million won’t. Arguably Quinn’s proposals will put less money in the pockets of most Illinois citizens in a high-anxiety job climate, which means they’ll be less likely to spend it and get the economy humming again.
We fail to see how these tax increases will convince Caterpillar to hire back the 24,000 workers it has let go in this downturn. Government may have a role where short-term job creation is concerned, but where most of us live, the private sector is the place we look for long-term, steady employment. “If you’re able-bodied and you’re breathing, we want you working in Illinois,” said Quinn. Yes, but will this budget accomplish that?
We favor a graduated income tax instead of Illinois’ flat tax; Quinn’s increased personal exemption proposal would cut taxes for families but leave single people making as little as $20,000 paying higher income taxes. A constitutional amendment allowing a truly progressive tax structure should be on next year’s agenda.
“(Quinn’s) shifting the bulk of the burden of this tax increase to what I think is truly middle-class,” said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego.
* Let’s keep this focused on the exemptions, not the tax hike. We’ll talk about that subject in another post.
Calling the Art Institute of Chicago’s impending 50 percent admission fee increase a raw deal for taxpayers, a powerful Chicago alderman has threatened to cut off the museum’s free city services.
“They are making it almost impossible for the average Chicago citizen to take his or her family to view these Chicago treasures,” said Ald. Ed Burke (14th).
Burke and Ald. Virginia Rugai (19th) introduced an ordinance that would block city fee waivers to any not-for-profit Chicago Museum that charges more than $10 for general admission.
“Once the proposed increase takes effect, the general admission to the art Institute would top the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London,” Rugai said.
The department has nearly fulfilled a promise to equip every beat car with a camera. Of its fleet of 2,500 vehicles, many of the 264 video-equipped vehicles are beat cars. But many other cars also make traffic stops and aren’t equipped with cameras.
The city plans to put cameras in 275 more police vehicles with $2 million in federal stimulus money.
Instead of a ticket with a maximum fine of $100 for impersonating a police officer, impostors now face a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a fine of $1,000 to $1,500. Firefighter impersonators, who faced only a $10 fine, will be subject to the same penalties.
The board does not have the authority to enact campaign-finance laws, so it is considering setting limits on businesses. Any company that donates more than a set amount to a county campaign would be ineligible to receive a county contract. Details, such as the dollar amount for the limit, have not been determined.
