Republicans help pass Illinois budget over Rauner’s veto
Republicans help pass Illinois budget over Rauner’s veto
For the second time in as many months, legislative Republicans have turned on their Republican governor for his refusal to back tax increases to help balance the budget. Last month, supermajority Kansas Republicans revolted against Sam Brownback’s six-year tax-cutting experiment, which brought the state persistent budget problems and two credit downgrades.
Tonight (July 6) enough Republicans joined with the majority House Democrats to override Bruce Rauner’s veto of the Illinois budget (the Senate overrode on July 4 with one Republican vote), ending a two-year battle. Like Kansas, Illinois will now have tax increases, in this case on both the personal and corporate income tax, which are expected to raise $5 billion a year.
The budget also contains 5% budget cuts for most state agencies and a 10% cut to college education, according to the Chicago Tribune. Democrats had fought Rauner for two years over cuts and, as the Tribune reports, Rauner had refused to sign an income tax increase unless there was a property tax freeze and/or cuts to workers’ compensation. Amazingly, the budget battle led to state universities receiving no state funding since January; colleges and universities are refunded in the new budget.
Like so many Republicans, Rauner simplistically blames all of Illinois’ budget problems on Democrats and unions. His extreme policy proposals have bee presented as the only way to tackle the budget for his entire term of office, and he refused to negotiate. As a result, key members of his own party abandoned him on absolute opposition to tax increases. We’ll have to wait and see whether this mini-trend will spread to more states.
in Ohio, Republicans overrode Kasich’s veto, leaving Medicaid $1.4 billion short..
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170706/kasich-says-legislature-has-left-medicaid-14-billion-short
Some Republicans are more at war at war with reality than others.
Rauner’s key principle since his election has been destruction of unions, particularly public employee unions. Ironically, much of his margin of victory was defection of public employee union people from the Democrats due to their anger with the Democratic incumbent, Pat Quinn, who was a tough negotiator with them on their collective bargaining agreement. Quinn also took the blame for an increase in the income tax that, also ironically, was key to helping fund public employee union pensions. It sunsetted before the election and Rauner urged the legislature not to renew it because the state didn’t need it. The Democratically controlled legislature agreed but then, when Rauner’s assumptions regarding court decisions on pension amendments proved wrong, it insisted on any tax increase being approved with bipartisan support. Rauner resisted the increase up ’til the bitter end and his captive legislators deserted him when the rating agencies threatened to reduce the state’s bonds to junk status and the state’s universities were in danger of losing their accreditation and various non-profit agencies essential to providing state financed services were on the verge of closing. The whole thing was as utterly stupid as the Brownback experience in Kansas.
Illinois is already a high tax state that is losing workers. With this 30% increase in state taxes, expect that to accelerate creating a classic death spiral.
Terrible Death Spiral
@Sammy, will this be like the death spiral in overtaxed, overregulated California? Or the United States after the Clinton tax hikes? You’ll forgive me, but conservatives over-predict death spirals.