* I am all for toning down the national political rhetoric. Count me in. I’ve written about it quite often. But a line was crossed into PC surrealism yesterday.
Last night, Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association appeared on CNN to talk about the Chicago mayor’s race. Shaw said this about Rahm Emanuel’s opponents…
Rahm is in both of their crosshairs.
19 minutes later, CNN’s John King, who had been conducting the interview, issued this apology…
Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were just having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. Just a moment ago, my friend Andy Shaw, who now works for a good government group out there, used the term ‘in the crosshairs,’ in talking about the candidates out there. We’re trying- we’re trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend. He’s covered politics for a long time, but we’re trying to get away from using that kind of language. We won’t always be perfect. So, hold us accountable when we don’t meet your standards.
Political and military terms have been interchangeable throughout history. I, for one, don’t use “crosshairs,” but I do use the word “target” on a regular basis. Would that get me called out on CNN? Not that I’d ever go on a cable news net. I can’t stand any of them, and yesterday’s nonsense just reinforces my beliefs.
So… [deep breath]… let us all do our best to respect each other (except when dealing with Packer fans) and treat each other with common decency. But, most of all, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence with the sort of goofiness that CNN exhibited yesterday. In other words, let’s start acting like adults for a change.
Former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak reported to federal prison in Terre Haute this morning, Bureau of Prisons officials confirmed.
Vrdolyak was sentenced in October to 10 months in prison for a mail fraud conviction tied to a $1.5 million kickback he pocketed in a crooked Gold Coast real-estate deal. […]
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Vrdolyak will have to serve the entire 10 months, officials said.
He surrendered to a minimum-security prison camp in Terre Haute, where former Illinois Gov. George Ryan is serving a 6 ½-year prison sentence for corruption.
* Carol Moseley Braun apparently believes that Martin Luther King’s birthday is so holy that nobody should desecrate it the day after…
“For [former President Bill Clinton] to come on the day following Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday to insert himself in the middle of a mayoral race, when the majority of the population and mayoral candidates are African-American and Latino, is a betrayal of the people who were most loyal to him,” Braun, former Democratic senator from Illinois, said in a statement. “It’s a mistake.”
Dr. King was a great man and he should be revered every day. But that had to have been one of the more desperate cheap shots of the entire season.
* Braun reportedly shook up her campaign staff this week…
Mike Noonan, a former top aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan who served as Braun’s campaign manager, will keep his title but play a new role. He will oversee Braun’s ground game with a little over a month to go before the Feb. 22 election. Noonan will manage 150 canvassers who will go door-to-door to reach potential Braun supporters and another 150 who will works the phones, according to Renee Ferguson, Braun’s spokeswoman.
Ferguson said the re-organization is due to an influx of staffers who left the short-lived mayoral campaigns of state Sen. James Meeks and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis. Braun also will begin shooting her campaign ads, Ferguson said.
Despite the spin, from what I can gather Noonan will run the campaign and Louanner Peters will handle Braun. Peters was a top Blagojevich official who was no stranger to controversy, but Braun apparently listens to her. That is no small feat.
Mr. Clinton, who told his audience of a 20-year relationship with Mr. Emanuel, pulled out his own memoir, “My Life,” and read from a section in which he had described Mr. Emanuel’s departure from the White House, and return to Congress from a district in Chicago — “the city,” Mr. Clinton read, “he thought should be capital of the world.”
Which may be why he’s running for mayor. But Luis Gutierrez begs to differ…
CF: Why does Rahm Emanuel want to be mayor?
LG: Because he can’t be speaker of the House.
* Gutierrez is doing a robocall for Gery Chico. Listen…
This is Congressman Luis Gutierrez calling to ask you to support Gery Chico for Mayor of Chicago. Gery Chico will be a jobs Mayor who fights for working families. Gery has a record of putting people to work. As Mayor, he’ll be on your side – a leader from our neighborhoods with a jobs plan for our neighborhoods. His opponent, Rahm Emanuel, led the fight for NAFTA and against labor unions. Emanuel’s support for big business led to hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. Emanuel’s fight for NAFTA hurt workers and we can’t trust him to stand up for us as Mayor. For Mayor, the choice is clear. Rahm Emanuel let us down. Gery Chico will fight for us.
* Speaking of boring, Emanuel’s completely forgettable monotone voice in his TV ads was finally broken up a bit in his latest spot, where his voice wavers just a little…
* Chico will receive an endorsement today from the Chicago police union. Should be a big boost. He also blasted Emanuel yesterday…
Clinton appointed Emanuel to mortgage giant Freddie Mac’s board in 2000. Emanuel served when Freddie Mac misstated its earnings by $5 billion for 2000-2002. When the problem was uncovered in 2003, top executives were forced out.
Chico alleges Emanuel had a chance to blow the whistle but looked the other way. He called on Emanuel on Tuesday to answer more questions about what he knew.
An Emanuel spokesman says Chico’s claims aren’t credible.
*** UPDATE *** From a press release, Emanuel is dreaming…
Rahm’s plan would cut Chicago’s portion of the sales tax by 20 percent – from 1.25% to 1% – while working with state legislators to expand the tax base by closing the loopholes that allow luxury goods to go untaxed. These goods – like private club memberships, pet grooming, limo services, tanning parlors and interior design services – evade paying their fair share under the current system. Taken together with County action to return its sales tax rate to 2008 levels, these changes will reduce the sales tax in Chicago to 9% from the current 9.75% by 2013.
The General Assembly just raised the income tax. It ain’t gonna institute a brand new service tax now. It should’ve done that before, frankly. But doing it now would cause them even more trouble than they currently have. This is a phony plan.
* From a press release, Gov. Pat Quinn and that unmentionable Packer governor to the North have settled on their Sunday bet…
Under the agreement, the winning team’s Governor will host the losing team’s Governor as he volunteers at a food pantry in the winner’s state. While volunteering, the visiting Governor will wear a t-shirt of the winning team. In addition, the losing Governor must also fly the opposing team’s flag in his office on the day before the Super Bowl.
* The Question: What do you think Mayor Daley and whatever the yokel’s name is who runs Green Bay should bet on?
* NBC5’s blog covered a recall effort against Gov. Pat Quinn the other day…
It’s only the first week of his first elected term, but already Gov. Pat Quinn is the subject of at least one recall effort.
Motivating the online petition is the state’s new income tax hike, which raises the personal rate from three percent to five percent. Quinn signed the bill into law earlier Thursday.
Neil A. Wurzer, purportedly of Olympia Fields, Ill., according to his Change.org profile, says the governor “has failed to protect the fiscal integrity of the state” and is “governing against the will of the people.”
The recall legislation that Illinoisans passed in the November election offers the means for the removal of the governor. The question is how much longer must our legislators wait to see what Quinn does before they take action.
I say no longer.
If you paid attention to Quinn’s tenure since Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment, you’ve seen enough. You’ve seen Quinn turn prisoners free to roam the streets of Illinois and commit further crimes. You’ve seen him give his staff and other high-ranking Illinois officials raises – raises! – as the state’s deficit spiked. You saw him leverage payments to the state’s nonprofits against an income tax increase.
There is nothing left to see.
Yeah, we just inaugurated Quinn on Tuesday. But it’s not too early to get the recall petitions circulating.
* Actually, Chris, it is too early to circulate recall petitions. From the Illinois Constitution…
A petition shall have been signed by the petitioning electors not more than 150 days after an affidavit has been filed with the State Board of Elections providing notice of intent to circulate a petition to recall the governor. The affidavit may be filed no sooner than 6 months after the beginning of the Governor’s term of office.
In other words, they can’t even start collecting petition signatures for six months. And before they can file their affidavit announcing their intent to circulate petitions, they have to do this…
The affidavit shall have been signed by the proponent of the recall petition, at least 20 members of the House of Representatives, and at least 10 members of the Senate, with no more than half of the signatures of members of each chamber from the same established political party.
And when that little, no-brainer effort is achieved, they have to do this…
The recall of the Governor may be proposed by a petition signed by a number of electors equal in number to at least 15% of the total votes cast for Governor in the preceding gubernatorial election, with at least 100 signatures from each of at least 25 separate counties.
And they have to gather those signatures in 150 days.
Hopefully, the rest of the media won’t go ga-ga on this unless somebody actually puts together a real effort and can show they can get all those legislative signatures and can prove they have an operation in place to gather 560,000 valid petition signatures in five months, with 100 signatures from at least 25 separate counties.
* From the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs, we have this graph showing state deficits with the tax hike (in blue) and without the tax hike (in red) through Fiscal Year 2022. Click the pic for a larger image…
That’s quite a huge deficit without that tax hike.
The reason there is still a deficit in the IGPA’s graph even with the tax hike is that the state has not yet passed the bonding bill to pay off its overdue bills. And the deficit spikes again when the tax hike is set to expire.
The IGPA is also concerned with the state’s new expenditure caps, noting that non General Funds accounts could be used to get around them.
* Meanwhile, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka wants to change the way the state pays those overdue bills…
Topinka said she’ll ask lawmakers for the power to set up a process that would pay human service providers, hospitals and others at least part of what they’re owed in a regular, predictable way. That way they wouldn’t have to wait months, not knowing when a state check might come.
“I’d love to get them everything, but we don’t have that kind of money,” Topinka said.
Topinka says she can identify at least $1 billion in painless budget cuts – eliminating duplication, anachronisms and padding that no one would ever miss.
I asked for her list of that billion dollars in painless, nobody-will-miss-them cuts. Her office says they’re working on it.
* Jimmy John Liautaud, the founder of the Jimmy John’s sandwich store chain headquartered in Champaign, has rented a house in Florida and enrolled his students in school there because he’s furious about the state tax hike…
“All they do is stick it to us,” he said, adding that the Legislature and governor showed “a clear lack of understanding.”
“I could absorb this and adapt, but it doesn’t feel good in my soul to make it happen,” Liautaud said.[…]
Liautaud said he has been contacted by “multiple pro-business states” that made him feel “wanted and important.”
“I enjoy being courted and the process,” he said.
The company employs 100 people at its Champaign headquarters. The board of directors will decide later whether to move the company. Liautaud told the News-Gazette that he plans to commute from Florida to Champaign during the interim.
The tax hike was apparently the last straw. He was picketed by local unions for using non-union labor to build a shop not long ago. He wasn’t happy about that…
He said he’s sick of being “pummeled.”
“I’m not sophisticated enough, smart enough or politically correct enough to absorb it all,” he said.
* And while other states are scrambling to create maximum fear and loathing among Illinois business owners, our state’s economic outreach program took it on the chin when its top guy got popped for a DUI…
The director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence in his personal vehicle last week.
Warren C. Ribley, 53, of Pajim Lane was taken to the Sangamon County Jail following a traffic stop at MacArthur Boulevard and Wabash Avenue.
Great. Just great. This state can’t buy a break. Just when we need him most, Ribley gets himself in trouble.
* Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is using Illinois’ tax hike and a proposed Minnesota tax hike to gin up the locals and keep the story alive…
Governor Scott Walker traveled around the state today to unveil additions to the signs that welcome people as they cross the state borders. Laura Podgornik reports from Superior.
Construction workers placed red “Open for Business” plaques onto the four “Welcome to Wisconsin” signs in Beloit, Dickeyville, Hudson, and Superior. Walker says he hopes the signs will attract businesses to move into Wisconsin and help bolster the state economy.
“The biggest issue is jobs I hear that all the time when I’m up here in Douglas County and really in the Northwest in Ashland, in Bayfield, in Burnett and surrounding counties. It’s about jobs. It’s about getting the economy going again. So what we’re talking about not only with the sign but is making it more attractive for job creators to continue to grow and invest here and for that matter, for those from other states to find it attractive to bring their jobs here.”
Walker says he is unveiling the signs in light of tax hikes in Illinois but he hopes to attract businesses from all bordering states including businesses based in Duluth.
Chicago business leaders still smarting over Illinois lawmakers’ decision to raise personal and corporate income taxes were greeted Tuesday by Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard’s smiling mug in their morning newspaper. A full-page ad purchased by a city economic development group in the Chicago Tribune — and two other downstate newspapers — extolled our fair city’s friendlier business climate.
Soon, business execs might see billboards hyping the Hoosier state’s lower tax rates while they sit in Chicago traffic.
But as state and city economic development leaders compete with surrounding states to capitalize on Illinois’ tax mess, there is one line that Indiana Secretary of Commerce Mitch Roob says he won’t cross as the state contemplates its own ad campaign.
Slapping ads on the side of Chicago city buses — well, that would just be unseemly.
I’m not sure I’d sell them a blog ad, either. Although, if the price is right…
St. Louis-based Bill O’Grady, chief investment strategist for Confluence Investment Management, said this increase is different than 2008, when gas topped $4 a gallon. At that point, part of the problem was because of the way some areas of the country required “almost custom tailoring” in the formulation of their gas. Now it’s the need for oil to fuel China and India.
“Unlike the last time we had a spike, this one is almost entirely crude oil driven,” O’Grady said.
If just-released International Energy Agency forecasts that global use will require 89 million barrels of oil a day prove true, that will stretch the existing capacity.
“It’s going to drive the price of oil higher,” he said. “We’ve got a problem developing. And really, it’s a global one.”
* Another fur coat missing from Inaugural Ball turns up
The owner of a $7,000 mink coat that disappeared from the coat check area during the Jan. 10 ball told the Springfield Police Department over the weekend that an anonymous person contacted her and arranged to ship the coat back to her. It was unclear how the person with the coat tracked down the owner, who lives in Springfield.
Another coat, a $2,000 cashmere one with a faux fur hood, was reported missing or stolen from the coat check but was found at the end of the night when workers searched the area. Best Expo, the contractor that handled the coat check operation at the Prairie Capital Convention Center that night, told police it would make arrangements to ship the garment to the owner in Quincy.
A third coat — a $5,000 mink coat — remains missing.
As part of a massive deal that has been in the works for nearly two years, state officials announced Tuesday that they’ve inked a final pact with Northstar Lottery Group to run the lottery.
Northstar, which is comprised of three companies that already do business with the state, has said it could generate about $1.5 billion more over the next five years than what the lottery projects it would normally generate.
* Private managers to take over Illinois Lottery in July, state says
The two losing bidders, Intralot and Camelot Illinois, protested the award. The Department of Revenue countered that the bidding was handled properly and that the protests should be rejected. Protest Officer George Logan rejected both the Intralot and Camelot protests Friday.
Logan said Camelot failed to prove “fraud, lack of authority, unfair dealing, favoritism or other arbitrary conduct on the part of the purchasing entity.” Without that proof, he said, the protest cannot be upheld.
Logan also said Camelot missed deadlines for filing some of its protests.
After serving less than a year on a federal corruption conviction, ex-Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase has been released from the prison camp in Duluth.
Blase, 82, was transferred from the Minnesota tundra to a halfway house on Chicago’s West Side just before Christmas, prison officials and a family member confirmed.
* Environmentalists salute Daley, challenge next mayor to do more - Coalition of environmental groups says there is much for the next mayor to accomplish
While the corporate income tax in Illinois will rise to 7% on a temporary basis, companies that do business in the state of Illinois are taxed on profits from the location of their customers – not the physical location of the business. Moving across the state border will not affect a business’s Illinois income tax bill. For example:
· The only way for the company to avoid paying Illinois corporate tax is for the company to cease selling their product to Illinoisans; relocating out of Illinois will have no effect on the amount of money paid by a company to the State of Illinois.
· A company that has $1 million in profits from $10 million in sales – $4 million of which was generated by sales in Illinois – will pay the same amount in income taxes ($28,000 under the 7% rate) whether they are located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, or even Montana. [Emphasis added.]
So much for my secret plan to re-incorporate in South Beach.
* I’ve been perusing the online letters to the editor sections of Illinois newspapers lately so you don’t have to. It’s never a fun thing to do. The amount of misinformation and weirdness that newspapers allow into their publications is truly beyond the pale. Here’s one theme that I see everywhere these days…
Dear Governor Quinn:
When you get a chance, you might want to call a guy named Chris Christie in New Jersey. He has some interesting ideas on actually cutting taxes and reducing spending - the key words being cutting and reducing
There’s been a huge amount of hype about Gov. Christie, but what has he really done? New Jersey’s deficit for the current fiscal year was projected at $10.7 billion last spring. The state’s deficit for next fiscal year is now projected at around $10.5 billion. At that rate, his budget will be balanced in about 53 years.
Either the bottom has completely fallen out in New Jersey, or Christie didn’t actually cut much at all, or some of both. He claims to have balanced the budget, but how could he do that and still be facing a $10.5 billion deficit? Color me skeptical.
And after skipping last year’s $3 billion pension payment, Christie plans to skip $2.5 billion of the state’s payment next fiscal year.
In other words, so far he’s been all talk. Yes, he has “ideas,” but they haven’t actually made a dent in his real life deficit.
I live in Indiana, the state to the east of Illinois. I’m sorry about the financial mess your politicians left you in, but not so sorry for the outcome.
You see, in Indiana we elect politicians who realize we don’t want them to spend us broke, or they don’t get re-elected. It has worked well lately, because we’re in the black, and our taxes are lower then yours.
Actually, no. Indiana increased taxes in 2008. That’s a big reason why they have been able to weather the storm. And some of their counties levy as much as a 3 percent corporate income tax. It ain’t all roses over there. Their unemployment rate is higher than ours as well. So much for the miracle.
“We were wondering how a sad sack like Pat Quinn could get elected governor. We found some of the answer in the $250 million hand off he gave to the Black Caucus. He’s taking the money out of you and your friends’ pockets to repay them.”
I have a suggestion for our esteemed leaders in Springfield/Chicago regarding the income tax increase in Illinois. Another way to raise money for the state is to reduce welfare benefits by 2 percent. Fair is fair.
That $250 million was for education funding, not for black people, but whatever. And the state’s Department of Human Services Budget was cut by over 14 percent this fiscal year alone.
* And, of course, there were the illiterate screeds about Chicago…
All this could be solved with one simple solution: Let Chicago succeed from Illinois. Chicago is a cesspool of spending abuse and corruption that threatens to take down the entire state.
In other words, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about the Cook County vote last year except that Republicans completely failed to do whatever it took to make inroads during their greatest year since 1994. Back then, their gubernatorial candidate (Jim Edgar) actually won the county.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he’s looking for ideas for a wager with Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on the NFC Championship Game [between the Bears and the Packers]. […]
Walker wants to broker a bet with Quinn on the outcome. He says he’s thinking about offering beer, sausage or cheese, but would like get more creative. He’s looking for suggestions from the public through his Twitter account.
* Of all the dumb things to do, this ranks right up there…
During her final days in office, former state Rep. Careen Gordon scored a lucrative state job after casting an important vote that helped pass Gov. Quinn’s controversial 67 percent income tax increase.
Gordon (D-Morris) and a spokeswoman for the governor said there wasn’t any deal to trade Gordon’s vote for the $85,886-a-year seat on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
“There was no quid pro quo,” Quinn spokeswoman Annie Thompson said Saturday. “Bottom line, she was appointed because of her extensive background in criminal justice. . . . She was just the ideal candidate.” […]
“There was no deal. That’s untrue,” she said. “My background is a perfect match for someone on the Prisoner Review Board. I’m done talking about it. I’m done being called a liar.”
Gordon said she and Quinn discussed the tax increase when she approached him about the appointment in November, but he didn’t ask for her vote.
This appointment could have, and should have, waited. I, for one, don’t think there was a direct, absolute quid pro quo here. You can get around that pretty easily. In politics, some things are just left unsaid. And the way the “Honest Services Fraud” law has been diluted by the Supreme Court, you’d have to prove a direct bribe to bring any charges, so that’s not gonna happen.
But giving Gordon a job this soon certainly makes it look like something fishy is going on. Stupid, stupid move, governor. Truly.
Lame ducks would be dead ducks, under a Constitutional amendment some Downstate Republicans want Illinois voters to decide.
The income tax hike which passed the legislature in the final hours of the 96th General Assembly — Tuesday night in the House and in the wee hours Wednesday in the Senate — got the minimum votes needed to pass: sixty in the House and thirty in the Senate. Of those voting Yes, twelve representatives and one senator were not coming back when the 97th General Assembly was sworn in at midday Wednesday.
Representatives led by Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) want to change that. Rose has filed a Constitutional amendment which, if the legislature and governor approve, would allow voters to decide that the outgoing General Assembly could not convene between an election and the inauguration of the new one.
The proposal, discussed at news conferences in Champaign and Decatur Friday, comes in light of not just the tax increase, but also the death penalty repeal and civil unions, also approved during the post-election veto session or the January lame duck session.
* To the Wayback Machine, Sherman! Decatur Herald & Review, January 13, 1997…
Democrats took control of the Illinois House last week as a result of the swearing-in of legislators elected in November.
Republicans were unable to give up control of state government without a final show of power.
Their actions included redistricting the Illinois Supreme Court to give the 4-3 Democratic body a 4-3 Republican split, ending straight-party voting, and imposing enormous new paperwork burdens on the Cook County assessor.
It was the straight-party campaign, run by Cook County Assessor Tom Hynes, that resulted in Democrats winning back the House. “They were obviously acts of retribution,'’ said state Rep. Michael J. Madigan, D-Chicago, who became speaker the day after the Republican efforts.
State Rep. Lee A. Daniels, R-Elmhurst, who relinquished the speakership to Madigan, was fairly candid in his last hours of power. It could, Daniels acknowledged, be labeled “a partisan last day, obviously with some justification.'’
There is little new under the Statehouse dome.
* Statehouse roundup…
* Senate lawyer: Monken out as Illinois State Police director
* New bill would impose pension reforms on existing participants [fixed link]
* Unpaid rent, bills add up as legislator, CPS feud
* Tax credit is incentive to hire temporary workers
* Gun pointed at Rep. Acevedo: A van pulled up to him and an occupant pointed a gun at him, but did not fire it. Acevedo loudly announced his office and the van “took off,’’ police said.
* Illinois death penalty decision leaves uncertainty
* This is probably something that the Democrats neglected to properly consider when they raised taxes…
Annually, the increase will equate to whole paychecks they’ll be handing over to the state.
Two percent of one’s income is, indeed, about equal to a week’s wages. Gov. Pat Quinn and the Democrats better worry that nobody else picks up on this theme. It could be extremely powerful. And quite dangerous. Nevermind that the total state income tax burden prior to this was only about one and a half weeks’ worth of wages. This new one week of pay taken away and given to the brain trust running our ever-so-competent government is something that people can very easily understand.
* But in the meantime, we’ll just have to endure false propaganda like this from the Heartland Institute…
Land of Lincoln? Land of Larceny. […]
The legislation does include a spending “cap,” but it allows spending to grow 18 percent from fiscal 2011 levels over the next four years – and they’ll likely ignore the cap, just as they’ve ignored the state’s balanced budget requirement and a 1995 law requiring proper funding of pensions.
The reason spending appears to be growing from this fiscal year is because we currently can’t pay our bills.
* And the Tribune recklessly printed this Cal Thomas screed, which starts with Illinois as an example and then goes national…
Suppose there was a groundswell of taxpayers who announced they will no longer pay for government and, in fact, will start reducing payments to government if politicians won’t significantly cut spending? That would get their attention.
There aren’t enough prisons to house thousands, perhaps millions, of taxpayers who cry “enough” and demand that Washington live within its means. It’s time to starve the beast. If Dracula doesn’t get blood, he dies. If Washington can’t suck more money out of us and must stop borrowing, it will be forced to cut back, like so many Americans have done in this recession.
So much for toning down the rhetoric.
* Northwest Herald executive editor Chris Krug listed those who voted for Pat Quinn, including…
Idiots, buffoons and the terminally stupid.
Sheesh.
* But James Warren includes a wake-up call for the warring Midwestern states over Illinois’ new tax hike…
But a cautionary note came from [Rich Neimand, a Washington media and political strategist]: Economic health involves more than competitive tax rates and cheap land; it involves thinking far beyond Racine, Prairie du Chien, Carbondale and Elgin.
“Both governors should note that the weather is a lot sunnier in Mexico, the local officials infinitely more generous, the environmental regulations more lax and the gang violence probably no worse than Chicago or Milwaukee,” Mr. Neimand said.
So ridicule Illinoisans picnicking in the Dells, Badgers. But realize that it’s folks around the world who are really eating your lunch, Mr. Walker, and ours.
What were the alternatives to a tax hike? The state could have kept limping along as it is, with bills piling up and getting paid later and later, if ever. That means the vendors and local service organizations that do business with the state would have paid the price for their association with Illinois. Some people might call that unfair.
There is the stubborn belief that cuts alone - just the waste, mind you, not the good stuff - will solve the problem, despite repeated assurances from all sorts of budget experts that those kinds of cuts are a fantasy, that the numbers involved are just too big. You’re talking about wholesale elimination of about half of Illinois government.
Of course, no one likes paying higher taxes. In the end, though, there were no other reasonable alternatives.
He does not necessarily buy into the assumption by many that the tax hike, which raises individual income taxes from 3 percent to 5 percent and the corporate rate from 4.8 percent to 7 percent, will not be temporary. The tax is scheduled to drop to 3.75 percent in 2015.
Thompson signed a law that temporarily increased the tax from 2.5 percent to 3 percent. That increase took effect on Jan. 1, 1983, and went back to 2.5 percent on June 30, 1984.
“I went through and the people of Illinois went through in 1982-1983 the second-worst recession in American history,” Thompson said. “(The tax increase) wasn’t renewed, and so it can be done.”
The key to not continuing this year’s tax increase, according to Thompson, will be budget cuts and a better economy.
*** UPDATE *** Not that I usually care what they think, but I forgot to include this editorial from the New York Times…
For years, Illinois, like so many states, pretended that it had not fallen off a budgetary cliff. It was spending too much and taking in too little revenue, but every year it would kick its problems into the next. Unable to pay its bills, it finally accepted reality last week and raised taxes on incomes and businesses — a first step toward getting its house in order.
The action was immediately ridiculed by several governors around the nation who are still pretending that they can cut their way out of the enormous shortfalls they face, without raising taxes. Wisconsin and Indiana predicted a windfall of angry corporations and residents would head their way from Illinois. Even Gov. Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican, vowed to fly to Illinois to invite businesses there to defect to his state.
That makes great political theater. But businesses and voters in Illinois, and around the country, should take a closer look at the facts and figures, including their own. […]
With federal stimulus aid ending, states are in for their worst year in generations, and they cannot get out of it by either cutting or taxing alone. Illinois is figuring that out, finally. Too many other states are still in denial.
* Don’t follow Illinois’ lead: “The idea of competing on state tax rates is … hopelessly out of date,” said Ed Morrison, economic policy adviser for the Purdue Center for Regional Development.
* Tax hikes will prove to be an onerous burden, local business people say: To make matters worse, Poe doesn’t know how she’ll be able to afford the additional taxes, given that the state owes her business money that hasn’t been paid. She has no idea what happened to some of the expenses for which she asked for reimbursement and has been resubmitting claims to no avail. “Many of the bills are eight months out that need to be paid,” Poe said. “We just got payment recently for something in 2009. I have no idea if they just went into a black hole because we’re not getting payment on them.”
* R&R courtesy of good government: It was Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas who led the long battle a half-century ago to set aside the precious [Indiana] dunescapes. Business interests put up a stiff fight, but in the end a compromise set aside land for steel mills — and jobs — while preserving much of the rest.
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column takes a look at the recent tax hike…
Whether they admitted it or not, a large majority of Statehouse denizens was relieved last week when the General Assembly approved the income tax hike.
Ironically enough, Republicans may have been the happiest. The state’s horrific structural deficit was finally addressed, which is good news all around. And since they didn’t put any votes on the tax hike bill, the Republicans now get to use it as a wicked political hammer against the Democrats.
Their silent, but tacit consent came late in the evening when several Republicans, including the Senate GOP Leader, joined the Senate Democrats to support a borrowing plan to make the state’s pension payments this year. The Republicans wouldn’t put votes on the bill last spring until they got some budget reforms. But now that the $3.7 billion borrowing plan was paid for with a tax hike, they explained they could now go along.
House Republicans offered up their own version of tacit acceptance shortly before the tax hike was approved in their chamber. They took what amounted to a rare “caucus position” against putting any votes on Gov. Pat Quinn’s $14 billion bond program to pay off old debts, but afterward privately said they would likely agree to the plan down the road, as soon as they could extract some concessions from Democrats. The tax hike proposal, of course, includes designated cash to pay off those $14 billion in bonds.
And while there was relief and even elation in the building after the tax hike finally passed, the tax hike is definitely causing an uproar amongst the general populace.
It is, in a way, a bit like the federal healthcare legislation. Like President Obama, Gov. Quinn would’ve been badly hobbled at the Statehouse if his tax hike had failed (undoubtedly even worse, since no new revenues would’ve resulted in catastrophic budget cuts).
But also like Obama, Quinn and legislative Democrats will pay a steep political price for passing a very big plan without a clear popular mandate. Again, it will likely be worse for Illinois Democrats because most people tell pollsters they actually like individual pieces of that federal healthcare law. Not many are gonna love any part of this tax hike.
History may eventually look kindly on what the Democrats did last week. But the foreseeable future is going to be absolutely brutal.
There has also been much consternation about the “temporary” nature of this tax hike. For some reason or another, Illinois memories only go back to 1989, when the last “temporary” income tax increase was approved. That one never went away, goes the reasoning, and neither will this one.
That previous temporary tax hike was made permanent after the 1990 election. Republican Jim Edgar campaigned for governor on a pledge to make it permanent. Democrat Neil Hartigan said he would kill off the income tax hike. Edgar won and he got what he, and the voters, wanted.
But income taxes were also raised temporarily in 1983, during a deep, dark recession. That tax increase was even more controversial than this one because it came after an election when Republican Governor Jim Thompson had promised not to raise the income tax at all. It was allowed to expire on its own.
There is no doubt that the planned 2015 expiration of most of this tax hike will be the prime focus of the 2014 governor’s race. It’s probably a good bet that the permanency of the increase will likely be decided by whoever wins the next governor’s race. Just like it was in 1990.
Even so, voters last year thought they were electing a guy who backed just a one-point tax hike. Gov. Quinn said last week that conversations over the past couple of months with financial institutions that lend the state money led him to break his campaign promise on taxes. The state’s ability to borrow was about to be eclipsed, Quinn said.
Last summer, Quinn promised not to sign any tax hike above one percentage point. He made that pledge after his top budget aides were caught on video telling an out-of-state financial reporter that a 2 percentage point increase would likely be passed in January to deal with the structural deficit. It’s hardly believable, therefore, that the governor came to this realization just since the election.
If Quinn runs again, he’ll probably have to put his house up as collateral against his new promises.
* Debate strategy for mayoral rivals: Go after Rahm Emanuel: Braun replied, “No. Tampons. Let’s talk about Tampons. I don’t go to the NRA. This isn’t about guns. This is about Tampons and how women would feel about somebody who said that in the workplace.”
* Braun, Walls Spar at Mayoral Forum: Braun: “You have run for mayor, you have run for senate … No body knows what you’re doing. Let’s get some honesty.” Walls: “State the facts, state the facts. You got ran out of office.”
* Black wards adding more voters, while Hispanic wards lag behind: In just 10 weeks since the November midterm elections, every ward in the city showed a jump in the number of registered voters, indicating a high level of interest in the upcoming mayoral contest.
* Blagojevich trial hangs over Rahm’s campaign: Another mayoral candidate, Gery Chico, had his own Blagojevich issue. The Sun-Times has reported that Chico hosted a fund-raiser for Blagojevich the night before he was arrested. Chico told the Sun-Times he is a Democrat so it is not surprising he would host a fund-raiser for the state’s Democratic governor.
* Illinois disciplinary flaws highlighted in doctor’s sex case - State missed convicted physician’s admission of at least 3 sexual relationships with patients
* 13 fewer deputies on the job after layoffs: On the day 13 St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department deputies were laid off because of a budget impasse, a lawyer for the Fraternal Order of Police said no negotiations are scheduled to try to get them back on the beat.
* Springfield inexpensive place to live, studies show: Using 100 as the national average, Springfield rated an 86. The figures for other Illinois communities were: Chicago, 113; Kankakee, 100; Peoria, 100; Champaign-Urban, 98; Bloomington-Normal, 97; Decatur, 93; Rockford, 91; Danville, 89; and East St. Louis area, 87. According to local economic development groups and the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, the relatively low cost of electricity from City, Water Light and Power is a major factor in the Springfield figure.
* Fix is in for Capitol offices: Senate Republicans are flooded out of their third-floor Capitol offices for the next two weeks, even as senators and staff are gearing up for the start of a new session. About two dozen GOP staff members will have to be relocated to other areas of the Capitol complex while workers dry out offices soaked by a sprinkler system pipe that broke last week.
* Chef creates ‘invasivore‘ dinner, but experts say that’s not the way to halt finned intruders
