03/24/2014
Brendan Bond
Reboot Illinois
The budget address was originally scheduled to be last month. That was before Gov. Quinn asked for an extension before he gave it.
The address will finally be delivered this week and it comes on the heels of Bruce Rauner’s victory in the Republican primary election, which sets him up to face Quinn in the general election, and the proposal of a millionaire tax by House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz takes a look at Madigan’s proposal and the timing of it with Quinn’s upcoming budget address.
Writes Hinz:
I still think Mr. Quinn has an opportunity to move electoral numbers his way, if he can show himself to be more than the usual tax-and-spend Democratic liberal. But just as I was getting ready to write, the guy who’s the real master of Springfield moved to seize control of the tax issue himself.
That would be Michael Madigan, the powerful—I think it’s illegal in Illinois to publish the name Madigan without adding the adjective “powerful”—speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Governors come and go, and election seasons bloom and wither into history. Mr. Madigan stays, and his proposal to have voters mandate a 3 percent income-tax surcharge on millionaires while voting on Nov. 4 for legislative candidates immediately pre-empted much of the tax- revision agenda.
Most of the reaction to the Madigan plan has been predictable. School and union groups, which would get to spend the $1 billion a year in revenue that the speaker estimates the surcharge would net, were positively giddy. Business groups and Republicans tut-tutted and sighed about another hit to the state’s sorry reputation as a poor place to do business.
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Which brings us back to Mr. Quinn.
The backdrop to his speech is a gaping hole in the state’s shaky budget that will open up on Jan. 1, when a temporary tax hike expires. The personal income tax rate is set to fall back to 3.75 percent, from 5.0 percent, while the corporate rate would return to 5.25 percent, from 7.0 percent.
I hope, and think, that Mr. Quinn’s not dumb enough merely to endorse the Madigan surcharge or a broader progressive income tax. I wish, and believe, he’s not so clumsy that he will advocate a renewal of the full temporary income tax hike. If this governor has any political horse sense at all, he’ll give with one hand while taking with the other.
State Journal-Register reporter Doug Finke provides a preview of Quinn’s budget address. From Finke:
It will all be done against the backdrop of what promises to be a contentious political campaign year in which Quinn, a Democrat, is seeking re-election against Republican venture capitalist Bruce Rauner. Heading into the budget speech, there is agreement that it will be political.
“I do think this will help set a tone for the session and so the fall campaign,” said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. “I also expect he’ll start to talk to people in Illinois about just how big the budget challenges are in front of us.”
And, Yepsen said, it will probably be vintage Quinn.
“It’s going to be a populist speech,” he said. “It’s clearly a national Democratic theme. It’s there with Madigan’s millionaire tax. I imagine the word ‘populism’ is going to get used an awful lot in the analyses of the speech.”
House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would impose a 3 percent income tax surcharge on incomes above $1 million a year. It would raise about $1 billion a year to be used for K-12 education.
“I think people view this as a political speech and a political blueprint,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, the Senate Republicans’ point person on the budget. “What impact it has on the actual budget is probably negligible.”
If you want more coverage of Quinn’s address, the Associated Press has a story about Republicans claiming Democrats are putting on a “dog and pony show” in a move to justify another tax increase, while the Pantagraph takes a look at Democratic leaders outlining a doomsday scenario if the budget hole can’t be filled.
The budget address and the Madigan tax proposal are just the beginning of the news cycle in the race between Quinn and Rauner. Here is some more news on them:
Here are video highlights of Madigan’s press conference about the millionaire tax.
Rauner is recruiting big-name Democrats to support him as campaign season begins.
Will “class warfare” be the defining term of the 2014 election?
Brendan Bond is an editorial assistant at Reboot Illinois. He is a graduate of Loyola University, where he majored in journalism. Brendan takes a look each day at the Land of Lincoln Lowdown and it’s often pretty low. He examines the property tax rates that drive Illinoisans insane. You can find Reboot on Facebook at and on Twitter @rebootillinois. His email is Brendan.Bond@rebootillinois.com.