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
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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.