From the AP:
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn defended a massive increase in state income taxes passed by lawmakers Wednesday and promised to quickly sign the measure to help heal the state’s ailing finances.
Lawmakers worked overnight to pass the increase to raise the personal income tax rate from 3 percent to 5 percent for four years — a 66 percent increase. Corporate income taxes also will rise, but Quinn rejected the notion that it would decimate businesses…
It was a lame-duck, Democrat legislature which passed the tax hikes – from what I understand, about 12 hours before the end of the session. Gov. Quinn appears to be upset at the GOP over this – probably because the GOP voted against and thus put the entire blame for this travesty in the laps of the Democrats. Democrats lost State legislative seats in November, but still retain their majority…but not a large enough majority, it seems, to raise taxes…so, they had to use people rejected by the voters of Illinois in order to ram through the tax hikes.
Still, the people of Illinois are responsible for this – they could have voted GOP for governor; they could have voted in more State legislative GOPers. They choose Democrats – and Democrats have given them what Democrats always give: bloated, wasteful government and higher taxes.
These tax hikes will severely punish Illinois families and businesses – businesses which can often move a few miles down the road to another, lower tax State; States which will be delighted to thrive while Illinois withers and dies. It is just astounding that anyone would think that tax hikes in a severe recession would help…but, I guess, that isn’t the point. Democrats don’t care if it helps – they just didn’t want to cut the wasteful spending.
One thing will be interesting about all this – we now have a set of States completely controlled by one side or the other. Almost all the States are in dire financial straights, and we’ll now get to see over the next two years which set of ideas works. Will taxing and spending bring the good times, or spending and tax cuts? The proof will be in the pudding – by 2012, we’ll know who has the better economic ideas.
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