It’s sort of hard to believe, but Illinois Democrats are doing it again. Last year they passed a budget that provided for more spending than the state was going to take in in tax revenue. The problem was that the Democrats wanted to spend as if the state income tax was going to stay at 5% for the whole 2014-15 fiscal year even though they apparently did not want to vote for a bill, before the election, to keep the rate at 5%. (The last tax increase they passed, back in 2011, provided for the rate to go down to 3.75% on January 1, 2015.)
It was inappropriate when they did it last year, but at least there was a very small justification that they could always pass a bill keeping the rate at 5% after the election. Even if Pat Quinn lost, they still had two months to pass a bill keeping the income tax rate at 5%. Well, Pat Quinn lost, and the Democrats decided, the heck with it. We’re not going to raise (maintain) taxes to pay for the spending we voted for.
I thought that was an election year thing and that they wouldn’t do it again, but I was wrong. On Memorial Day, Speaker Michael Madigan said the Democrats are doing the same thing this year. According to Speaker Madigan, they are going to pass a budget that provides for $3 billion more in spending than it provides in revenue:
“Democrats in the legislature, both the House and the Senate, will offer a spending plan that's consistent with our view of what the state of Illinois should do for Illinoisans who need the government to be helpful to them. We will publicly acknowledge that we don't have the money to pay for this budget.”
It’s amazing. They say this is the amount they think Illinois needs to spend, but they won’t vote to raise the money to pay for it (I suppose because they don’t want to take the political responsibility for raising taxes). Please understand that the Democrats have veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate. If the Democrats want to, they can pass whatever they want, regardless of what Governor Rauner wants to do. But even if they can’t get a supermajority to raise the money they want to spend, Speaker Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton should at least pass, by a regular majority, bills to raise money equal to the amount they want to spend. Governor Rauner might veto it, but at least they would have met their obligation to match spending with revenue.
In an interview in The Wall Street Journal in 2011, Paul Ryan was asked whether, by trying to pass the budget plan he was proposing, which included cuts in some entitlement programs, Republicans could be walking into a political trap:
“That’s what everybody says, but I don’t really spend much time thinking about it, because I don’t really care. … All the political people tell us this. Even the Democrats tell us this. That it’s a trap, it’s a rope-a-dope. … It doesn’t matter.
The way I look at things is if you want to be good at this kind of job, you have to be willing to lose it. … [I]f you don’t believe in your principles, and applying those principles, then what’s the point?”*
Obviously, Speaker Madigan has a different view.
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* Paul A. Gigot, “Ryan’s Charge Up Entitlement Hill,” The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2011.
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