* I covered this part of the governor’s radio interview at length for subscribers today, so I’ll just let you comment on this RGA release…
Republican Governors are committed to lower taxes on hardworking families, and that dynamic is demonstrating itself in both the Iowa and Illinois gubernatorial races.
In Iowa, GOP Governor Kim Reynolds has announced the largest tax cut in state history. In Illinois, GOP Governor Bruce Rauner has fought against Democrat House Speaker Mike Madigan’s tax and spend agenda for over three years and is committed to stopping Democrat gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker - who is pledging to hike taxes even further if elected.
During an interview yesterday with AM Quad Cities, Governor Rauner praised Governor Reynolds’ tax cut plan as “exactly the right thing to do” and discussed how every state bordering Illinois is cutting taxes, while J.B. Pritzker is making a devastating tax increase for Illinois the centerpiece of his campaign. Listen here.
Reynolds and Rauner know that hardworking families in Iowa and Illinois deserve more money in their pockets, and both Governors are working hard, with some friendly border competition, to get the job done.
Listen to Governor Rauner’s interview with AM Quad Cities here.
Transcript:
HOST: Governor, we talk a lot here on the show AM Quad Cities about the movement from Illinois to Iowa and how that’s getting better and better or worse and worse depending on what side of the river you’re on. And now your friend Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Republicans in Des Moines are passing some income tax cuts, that’s got you concerned?
RAUNER: Oh man we sure do. All of us in states need to compete — and we should compete with each other — we do compete. We compete for businesses, we compete for working families, we compete to grow. Competition is a great thing. Illinois has been losing the competition for years even though we’ve got wonderful people, great location, very very wonderful transportation and education. But we have brutally high taxes and brutal regulation and so our businesses and jobs have been leaving, and working families have been leaving our state. And what’s amazing is the states around us have cut their taxes. Wisconsin’s cut taxes, Indiana’s cut taxes. They’re running budget surpluses. And now Iowa is cutting taxes, which is exactly the right thing to do to grow jobs, grow family income. And to make it more reasonable for economic growth in the state.
And what’s Illinois doing? Right now, Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan and his democrats in Springfield are proposing a massive tax hike and candidate Pritzker, Madigan’s choice for governor, Pritzker is running around the state saying, “let’s raise the income taxes on the people of Illinois.” Horrible, devastating idea, terrible idea. Our tax burden is already higher in Illinois overall than it is in Iowa. We’re already higher taxes than Iowa overall, and to think that Iowa is cutting their taxes to be more competitive while we’re going the other way. We’ve got to fight against this tax hike.
- Demoralized - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 10:58 am:
Yes. Let’s cut taxes and watch the pile of unpaid bills stack up again. The problem with the Governor is that he’s spouting off about tax cuts and at the same time can’t seem to say what a budget would look like with the reduced revenue. The politics of shouting cut taxes is easy. As we’ve seen with Rauner, actual governance is hard. He’s not figured that out yet.
- Blue Bayou - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:00 am:
Sure, Iowa, follow the ILGOP lead and wreck your state.
Also, how are soy bean sales?
- UICGuy - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:01 am:
How did this work out in Kansas? Anyone?
- Aldyth - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:02 am:
Governor Rauner, has it occurred to you that you’re one of the biggest reasons Illinois can’t have nice things? After the games you played with the budget?
- wordslinger - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:04 am:
–When fully implemented, as soon as 2023, the plan will reduce the number of individual income brackets to four with a top rate of 6.5 percent. The top corporate rate, which is now 12 percent, will be lowered to 9.8 percent.–
Wow, it just five years.
So who’s in favor of this graduated income tax? Rauner or Pritzker?
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/02/iowa-tax-cuts-hiding-legislature-session-reynolds/572419002/
- QCGuy - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:09 am:
Many of my colleagues and friends who live on the Iowa side have seen a dramatic reduction in school funding as Republicans a few years back instituted a commercial property tax rebate. Iowa has seen its education rating drop under the recent Brandstad-Reynolds administration, mental health assistance is non-existent - just to name a few. But you have seen local property taxes start to increase in many of the affluent areas of Bettendorf and Davenport. Really this is a benefit to the Illinois side of the QC as we even out property taxes our income tax rate is still much lower for those same affluent homeowners. Also one thing the Governor could do is support a state historical tax credit. Downtown Davenport has benefited tremendously from Iowa’s tax credit. It could be too late since the Feds made the Federal tax credit less desirable.
- walker - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:10 am:
If we had Iowa’s or Wisconsin’s graduated income tax structure, even after the lauded “massive cuts”, Illinois would be running surpluses too.
And we’re not even allowed to consider it?
- VanillaMan - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:16 am:
Besides Kim Reynolds, who does Rauner recommend we replace him with? That Missouri governor’s looking like he’ll be available soon….
- City Zen - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:17 am:
Iowa’s proposed income tax cut also coincides with a sales and use tax modernization, something Rauner initially advocated at the start of his tenure.
But Iowa’s proposed income tax changes are significant. The dollar savings for someone making $80K would be $1,000. And the effective rate would be only a half-percentage point highly than IL.
- One Time - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:17 am:
Here is a link about how Iowa’s new fetal heartbeat bill will create jobs in Illinois.
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/education/university-of-iowa/2018/05/03/iowa-abortion-law-fetal-heartbeat-bill-university-iowa-ob-gyn-residency/578527002/
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:30 am:
==–When fully implemented, as soon as 2023, the plan will reduce the number of individual income brackets to four with a top rate of 6.5 percent. The top corporate rate, which is now 12 percent, will be lowered to 9.8 percent.–==
Rauner (and every other elected republican official) is quick to tell Illinoisans that progressive income tax structure will kill our economy, but then he tells Iowa radio that four brackets with a top rate of 6.5% is just grand. Anyone want to explain his latest but of hypocrisy, or do we just blame Rauner’s own words on Madigan?
- Apple/Orange - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:45 am:
The majority of Iowa school districts impose an income tax surcharge in addition to the state income tax.
All told, 14 states have county- or local-level income taxes; the average rate is:
0.5% Alabama
0.63% in Delaware
1.56% in Indiana
0.22% in Iowa
2.08% in Kentucky
2.89% in Maryland
1.70% in Michigan
0.5% in Missouri
0.50% in New Jersey
1.94% in New York
2.5% in Ohio
0.37% in Oregon
2.95% in Pennsylvania. https://files.taxfoundation.org/20180315173118/Tax-Foundation-FF576-1.pdf
- The Dude Abides - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:51 am:
Iowa and Wisconsin have a graduated tax and their tax rates are much higher than those in Illinois. When Illinois 5% flat tax rate expired in 2015 Rauner said that he could run things on 3.75%. Two and a half years later he had added 11.5 billion dollars to our debt backlog, which added up to around 16.5 billion. There’s still a lot of that backlog to pay off though when the tax rate was increased to 4.95% last July the state was able to knock off a decent amount of the debt backlog. The Governor was even hiding more debt in the agencies under his control and resisted efforts to find out how much debt he was hiding. Talking about a tax cut now is utter election year nonsense. The Governor has never seemed interested in Illinois paying businesses the money they are contractually owed by the state. Illinois will not attract businesses to the state as long as they exhibit this deadbeat behavior. We won’t get our house in order under the current administration, that’s for sure.
- Tequila Mockingbird - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:54 am:
Well Iowa does have a AAA credit rating compared to Illinois BBB- mostly due to a well funded pension system.
- Don Gerard - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:58 am:
- UICGuy - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:01 am:
== How did this work out in Kansas? Anyone? ==
see “Oklahoma”
- City Zen - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 11:59 am:
==The majority of Iowa school districts impose an income tax surcharge in addition to the state income tax.==
Iowa’s surcharge is based on state income taxes owed, but since retirees in Illinois don’t pay state income tax on their retirement income, this tax would create a gaping hole in local school districts’ budgets.
- Annonin' - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 12:02 pm:
GovJunk and host forgot to mention if he was paying the current Iowa rate ( 9ish) he would shellin’ out another $5 million. Thanks to Durkie and NoTaBill for savin’ GovJunk a few bucks
- Two Cents - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 12:03 pm:
It’s worth noting that Iowa increased its gas tax in 2015 by 10 cents to pay for infrastructure improvements.
- Fixer - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 12:33 pm:
City Zen, given the info posted by Apple/Orange regarding those averages for the taxes discussed, and using Iowa as an example at 0.22%, I’m not sure how “gaping” of a hole there would be in most school districts due to retirement income. Even at the high end (2.95%), how big of a hole would that create, I wonder.
- City Zen - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 12:36 pm:
==Iowa increased its gas tax in 2015 by 10 cents to pay for infrastructure improvements.==
But unlike Illinois, Iowa doesn’t levy sales tax on gasoline.
- supplied_demand - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 12:44 pm:
==Well Iowa does have a AAA credit rating compared to Illinois BBB- mostly due to a well funded pension system. ==
Could the funded pensions be due to their higher income taxes?
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:10 pm:
==How did this work out in Kansas? Anyone?==
Kansas debt to GDP state and local is the highest in the nation at 24.5%. For comparison Illinois is 18.8% and the national average is 15.6%. Source : usGovernmentSpending.com
- Wow said I - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:16 pm:
Our governor needs to stop playing politics and start making some phone calls to the GOP cause China is going to walk away from our soybeans then what happens to the state?
- Rich Miller - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:17 pm:
=== China is going to walk away from our soybeans===
Read somewhere this week that it already is.
- Anonymous - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:18 pm:
The Illinois side of the QC is not very nice, especially in comparison to Bettendorf and Davenport. I’d move across the river too if I were them.
- Rich Miller - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:19 pm:
===The Illinois side of the QC is not very nice===
My parents used to live there. It could use some work.
- Rabid - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:22 pm:
Years of the Rauner rollback tax cut failed to produce revenue
- DuPage - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:48 pm:
Speaking of Iowa, not allowing that windmill-power line to cross into Illinois will result in higher electric rates on the Illinois side of the QC. That would give any factory owner on the fence an extra incentive to re-locate in Iowa. Businesses have to make a profit to pay income tax. Income taxes are on a percentage of bottom line profits. Electricity costs are directly 100% taken off of bottom line, even if there is no profit.
- Ole General - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:51 pm:
At least the QC has Whiteys.
- wordslinger - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:58 pm:
=== China is going to walk away from our soybeans===
Already have. Contracts canceled. Ships from U.S. ports have turned around at sea. Big score for Brazil.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-04/soy-source-gives-true-taste-of-mnuchin-s-good-china-talks
https://www.agweb.com/article/us-grain-ships-change-direction-mid-voyage-after-china-tariffs/
- Wow said I - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 1:59 pm:
Read somewhere that it already is : yes Brazil that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the phone and try to do something about it. He’s the governor at least for the next 7 months he should give a damn about these farmers 4.7 % unemployment will become ?
- supplied_demand - Friday, May 4, 18 @ 2:12 pm:
==income tax surcharge==
Apple/Orange, I can’t find this data in your link. Am I missing it somewhere? I would love to see this analysis.