* It’s never easy to do anything big in a legislature. This tax hike plan is no exception. The Republicans hate it, some conservative and/or politically vulnerable Democrats despise it, and even some liberals have found a way to diss it…
Leading black lawmakers, including former Chicago mayoral candidate James Meeks, vowed Wednesday to oppose any increase in the state income tax if it does not explicitly set aside money for schools and property tax relief.
Gov. Quinn, Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who were expected to reconvene on more tax talks Wednesday afternoon, have discussed several tax-increase scenarios — though none appear to have the tax-swap features that Meeks helped pass through the Senate in May 2009.
That plan raised the individual income tax rate from 3 to 5 percent, increased exemptions for property taxes and imposed sales taxes for the first time on services like haircuts, auto repairs and dry cleaning.
“I cannot support anything that does not put money toward property tax relief and education. For eight years, I’ve carried a school funding bill, and its main essentials were money for education and money for property tax relief,” Meeks said.
“All of a sudden, the proposal we’re hearing about now does not have either of the two,” said Meeks, who made his position known during a closed-door Senate Democratic caucus earlier Wednesday.
* But Senate President John Cullerton told reporters yesterday that spending won’t go up…
Senate President John Cullerton told reporters tonight that raising the rate 2 percentage points is probably the most legislators can accept.
“Hopefully, that’ll be the last meeting because we have to have an agreement or we’ll run out of time,” Cullerton said of Thursday’s planned meeting.
Cullerton said spending in the next budget cannot go up.
“We have such a great loss in federal revenue dollars that we know that the spending can’t go up,” he said. “This is all premised on the fact that there will be no spending increases, moratorium on new programs and what we’re trying to avoid is deficit spending. That’s really what the fight’s about.”
* And watch Cullerton’s interview to see that he predicts property tax relief will be included in the final package…
State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, said the proposal will return the “struggling” program to a safety net for the poor, instead of a catch-all for the potentially ineligible.
“It’s struggling for the people who need it the worst,” he said. “We’re talking about the people who are on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, the people for whom access is a truly critical issue. The people who aren’t mobile. People who can’t drive two hours and take a day off because it’s not a big deal to make sure that their child can get to a medical provider.”
* But even though the Republicans had demanded Medicaid reform before considering a tax hike, Sen. Righter yesterday said that idea was now a non-starter…
“This (Medicaid) is an issue unto itself,” Righter said. “This is not a trading card in other areas of public policy.”
*Requires that 50 percent of Medicaid recipients be in managed care programs by 2015.
*Sets the income level for participation in the All Kids program to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $66,000 per family.
*Ends the practice of automatically re-enrolling participants once they are part of Medicaid. They will be required to annually prove they are still eligible.
*Places a two-year moratorium on expanding eligibility for participation.
*Allows pharmacies to provide 90-day supplies of some maintenance drugs.
*Creates civil penalties for Medicaid fraud.
*Phases out the practice of paying Medicaid bills from one budget year with revenue from the following budget year.
* And in other news, the Senate-approved gaming bill has been altered in the House…
“[The new additions] provide that our race tracks in Cook County may relocate within three miles of their current location, under certain conditions. It provides a $2-million renovation tax credit to be utilized by all riverboats in the state of Illinois,” Lang said.
“The [legislation] provides that all of the [casinos] authorized under this bill might build temporary facilities. Because we know that it may take up to two years to build a new [casino]. We want to get the money flowing, we want to get people hired, we want to bring in this money.”
But those temporary sites would have to wait for Illinois’ other gambling expansion to get up and running first. Lang’s legislation requires that 2,000 video poker positions be opened before new casinos are established.
Existing casinos also would see a tax sweetener under Lang’s legislation. The nine current riverboats and the one casino being built in Des Plaines would receive a decade-long, 5-percent credit to help offset any losses to the new casinos.
* Madigan visits state Senate floor to press for tax hike: “This is Madigan’s, certainly his way of telling you that, ’something has to be done, and I’m going to be the one to do it,’” said Sen. Lou Viverito, D- Burbank, a longtime Madigan ally who spoke to the speaker for several minutes.
* Madigan Refuses to Be Pinned Down on Tax Increase Amount: Republican Minority Leader State Sen. Christine Radogno said she met with Gov. Quinn on Wednesday to talk about spending cuts. “He said they’ve already cut spending by $3 billion, but what they’ve done is not pay bills,” Radogno said.
* As income tax talks heat up, some suburban lawmakers remain cool to it
* Ill. lawmakers move closer to income-tax increase: But outgoing Rep. Elizabeth Coulson, R-Glenview, Ill., will not budge. “I am not going to all of a sudden change my mind where my district comes from and say, ‘take the money and run with it,’” Coulson said.
* VIDEO: House Rep. Lou Lang discusses gaming changes
* Sweeping teacher tenure, strike bill pushed in Springfield
* State Senate rejects Taylorville Energy Center clean-coal project: The loss came a day after state Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, announced he would vote against the project because of the high cost of electricity to commercial and industrial consumers. McCarter, who represents a district adjacent to where the plant will be located, had campaigned throughout the fall saying he supported the plant.
* Tenaska bill falls short in Senate: Sponsoring Sen. Deanna Demuzio, D-Carlinville, used a parliamentary maneuver to keep the bill alive for another possible vote, but time is literally running out for the General Assembly to act.
* VIDEO: St. Clair County Clerk Bob Delaney testifies in Springfield about his county’s late military and overseas ballots.
* Navy Pier to be leased, run by not-for-profit: Reilly said McPier will provide seed money for renovations and deferred maintenance at the pier. He estimated about $50 million might be available.
* It can’t be fixed: Lawmakers have had 10 years to reflect — and act — on the failures of a system that sent at least 20 innocent men to death row. Illinois hasn’t executed an inmate since 1999, the year before then-Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium that continues to this day.
* For reasons unknown to mere mortals, Carol Moseley Braun extended the media coverage of her initial refusal to release her tax returns by dribbling out a bit more information yesterday. And she actually plans to keep the story alive by releasing more information sometime today…
Carol Moseley Braun on Wednesday released longer versions of her 2008 and 2009 tax returns, expanding on the two-page summaries she put online the day before.
Her disclosure brought her closer to matching two of her mayoral challengers: Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico, each of whom has released five years’ worth of tax returns. Braun’s campaign indicated she plans to make her 2005, 2006 and 2007 returns available as soon as today.
This is just pure torture. Why would anybody operate this way?
Newly released pages of her 2008 return show she claimed a loss of more than $120,000 for a public speaking business, CMB One Corp., even though she indicated a day earlier that her financial troubles stemmed from her organic food company. […]
The newly released documents indicated that $122,000 of those 2008 losses came from CMB One, her speaking enterprise, but a tax schedule that could offer more details was not provided by the campaign. […]
In the 2009 Schedule C disclosure about income related to “public speaking,” Braun reports income of $10,556 but a net loss of $6,322 after factoring in expenses that included more than $8,000 for use of her home.
However, in another part of the tax return, under Schedule E, she reports that CMB One, which she has listed in other public documents as her public speaking firm, actually lost $17,505. The return notes that the $17,000 loss is described in yet another document, Schedule K-1, but Braun did not release that document Wednesday.
So, she raised more questions than she answered with yesterday’s document dump. The mind boggles.
* Meanwhile, Braun held a press conference yesterday at the still bloody scene of a shooting and appeared to botch that as well…
As to this particular shooting, however, Braun’s information was a bit suspect.
According to police, two boys were shot at the location, not three, and more importantly, nobody had died as a result, although one of them was said to be critically wounded. The medical examiner’s office confirmed it had not been notified of a death, so either Braun is really on the cutting edge of this murder statistic cover-up by police, or she got her facts wrong.
Her campaign never responded to my request for clarification as to the identity of the victim, which is one reason I strongly believe the latter explanation.
Mistakes happen. Even without a death, the blood alone was enough to convince anyone this was the scene of a serious crime.
What’s less easy to overlook is Braun’s reckless suggestion that crime statistics showing murder to be down are misleading.
Everyone was in place at Carol Moseley Braun’s Jan. 4 LGBT meet-and-greet at Downtown Bar & Lounge ( including media figures from the print and television worlds ) —except the mayoral candidate herself.
However, she did make an appearance, of sorts. After some patrons waited more than two hours, event organizer Marc Loveless let attendees know that Braun would be unable to personally make the event ( apparently because of double-booking ) —but that he had her on the phone. He then put the phone up to the mic; unfortunately, the volume output was so low that only those closest to Loveless could hear what she said.
* I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a candidate bragging about being the “poorest candidate” before, but at least he had some spin…
City Clerk Miguel del Valle today said he has raised about $150,000 in his run for Chicago mayor and argued that those who are raising more money are doing it by using political connections.
“I will be the poorest candidate. I want to announce that today,” del Valle said at an event where he was talking about helping small businesses grow if he’s elected mayor. “I will be the poorest candidate with the most to offer.”
Gery Chico, a former chief of staff to outgoing Mayor Richard Daley and ex-president of the Chicago Board of Education, earlier this week announced he had raised $2.5 million. Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is expected to announce later this month that he raised millions through the end of the year.
Del Valle took aim at the two, and Chico by name, saying they used their government connections to help themselves personally and with their fundraising. Chico’s recently released income tax returns show he’s made millions from his law firm that lobbies City Hall, while Emanuel made millions of dollars after leaving the Clinton White House.
When city clerk hopeful Susana Mendoza heard Tuesday about mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel‘s recent announcement, she said she was stunned and exclaimed: “Hey, that’s my idea.”
Barely two weeks after Mendoza proposed raising money for the cash-strapped city by selling ads on city vehicle stickers, Emanuel announced Tuesday he would raise money for after-school programs with “new ads on the city’s vehicle stickers, on garbage trucks and an other public venues, like farmers’ markets.”
Asked if she felt that Emanuel had stolen her idea, Mendoza replied, “That’s maybe how some folks would see it. I was surprised to see it in the paper as his idea.”
CBOE Holdings Inc., parent of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, is supporting Rahm Emanuel for mayor, said CEO Bill Brodsky, who also is personally supporting the candidate.
Mr. Emanuel was Chicago-based CBOE’s go-to member when he served in the House of Representatives and he understands the exchange’s business, Mr. Brodsky said at an annual lunch with reporters.
“I think there’s a real substantive basis for our support,” Mr. Brodsky said.
CBOE will provide unspecified financial support to Mr. Emanuel, as it has in the past for Mayor Daley, Mr. Brodsky said.
The campaign is shelling out about $700,000 on cable and broadcast spots that began airing Tuesday and will appear through at least Jan. 16. The commercial is the third in two months.
Emanuel spent about $800,000 on his first ad, which aired only on broadcast TV for one week in November. In December, his ads were only on cable, costing almost $200,000.
* Related…
* Face of City Has Changed Dramatically, Census Estimates Show: The city’s black population fell by about 11 percent between 2000 and 2009, a pattern reflected in many neighborhoods across the South and West Sides. Twenty-four of the 25 city-designated community areas with the largest black populations in 2000 saw declines, according to the analysis of the five-year population estimates for 2005-9… Estimates of the city’s overall white population increased only modestly because of large declines in their numbers on the Northwest and Southwest Sides. Meanwhile, Hispanics continued to supplant whites in the bungalow belt.
* Better Government Association sues Chicago Police Department: The BGA, a not-for-profit corporation, claims the Chicago police refuses to release documents about the protection and transportation of Burke (14th) as requested in an Aug. 24, 2010, Freedom of Information Act request, according to the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court.
* Suit alleges police hold back info on alderman’s protection: The Chicago Police Department also said in its letter to the Better Government Association that it does not keep expense or travel records related to the security detail and referred the group to the alderman’s office for that information.
