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Excerpts from Crain’s Chicago Business Editorial:
Call these gas plant bills what they are: Taxation

December 06, 2010

Think Illinois lawmakers haven’t passed a tax hike lately? Think again.

A pair of bills jammed through the Illinois House in the veto session last week amount to an enormous tax increase for utility customers across the state. The legislation would require millions of Illinois residents and businesses to purchase gas and electricity at above-market prices from two “green energy” plants to be constructed with state backing.

Naturally, legislators tout the measures as “jobs bills.” The plants would create a couple thousand construction jobs and a few hundred permanent positions.
The rest of us would get to pay higher utility bills for decades. Illinois businesses figure the Taylorville plant would cost them hundreds of millions a year in higher electricity costs.

This is taxation. It’s government propping up businesses that can’t compete in the open market by requiring the people of Illinois to underwrite their extra costs.

And it’s an example of Illinois politics at its worst.

Backroom deals and backdoor tax hikes—they go together.

Read the full editorial here.