* One Illinois…

Bill Brady, the Senate minority leader in the General Assembly, lauded a bipartisan approach seeking compromise between Democrats and Republicans, but only up to a point Tuesday, declaring that a progressive income tax “must be defeated” at the ballot box in November 2020.

Brady made the remarks at the City Club of Chicago Tuesday. Saying, “It’s nice of you to invite Republicans every once in a while,” he defended the bipartisan approach he took toward compromise along with House Minority Leader Jim Durkin during the spring session in the General Assembly. […]

Brady said, “We came to the table — we didn’t seek to overturn it — to find common ground.”

Brady lauded compromises that produced additional funding for public education, senior care, and the Department of Children and Family Services. He said Republicans fought for the preservation of a controversial tax-credit scholarship program for private schools, calling the five-year pilot program “very important to us when we reformed education funding” two years ago.

He cheered the small-business reforms Pritzker agreed to, and he fully endorsed the $45 billion capital spending plan that passed.

“We knew that we needed to have an infrastructure program,” Brady said. “Illinois is in desperate need of a reinvestment in our infrastructure.”

In general, he added, “We think we were able to do a lot of good things by being at the table.”

He’s right.

* Rep. Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) took a different route to get to the same result…

Republicans beat back a slew of new state taxes this spring despite Democratic control of Springfield, a Twin City lawmaker said Tuesday.

“We negotiated (out of) a real estate transfer tax (to generate) $34 million. Bottled water tax, $19.9 million. … Streaming tax, $110 million. Rental car tax, $8 million. Car sharing tax, $3 million. Ride share tax, $200 million. Beer, liquor and wine tax at $120 million. Cable and satellite tax at $110 million,” said state Rep. Dan Brady, a Bloomington Republican, during the McLean County Chamber of Commerce’s “State of the State” event at Illinois State University’s Hancock Stadium Club. […]

“I believe the good outweighs the bad in raising the taxes we have to,” Dan Brady said. “Compromise government is far from ever perfect, but it needs to be done on behalf of the people.”

Pointing out the taxes they successfully negotiated out is a smart move. More Republican legislators who bit the tax bullet probably need to take that approach.

* It’s so easy for some to sit on the sidelines and let others do the hard work. For instance…

For Republicans in the General Assembly, though, the 2019 session was anything but a cause for celebration.

“The last four years under Gov. Rauner, we were able to stop some things because we had more seats,” said Rep. Tony McCombie, a Republican from Savanna. “And they had to have conversations with Republicans, and that’s the most important thing. I believe that that really upset them, that they lost a little bit of control, and they really are showing us and reminding us who they are, what their agenda is, and they’re really giving it to us.”

They’re giving it to them alright - to the tune of $300 million in Rep. McCombie’s case.

McCombie voted against the revenue package to fund the horizontal capital bill, even though the I-80 bridge over the Mississippi River in her district is slated for a $300 million renovation. I think that’s the second-largest bridge repair project in the state. The revamp will employ huge amounts of people from in and around her district, and keeping that bridge in decent shape is vitally important for Illinois, the nation and, obviously, her own district.

But she decided to let her colleagues take the hard votes. [Click here and scroll down to page 2 to see the project.]