The Illinois Senate has approved a new budget proposal sending it to the House of Representatives for consideration. But its future in the House remains uncertain.
State Senator Scott Bennett of Champaign (shown above) says the plan uses the same spending levels as the governor’s unbalanced budget proposal and contains both cuts and new revenues. Bennett voted for the budget. ‘’Our social services, community colleges and universities have been hemorrhaging under the budget impasse,’’ said Senator Bennett. ‘’This budget plan will bring necessary certainty and stability for those groups to plan for the future and grow,’’ added Bennett.
But State Senator Chapin Rose, a Republican from Mahomet, claimed Democrats voted to raise taxes and have still not balanced the budget. ‘’This morning in committee, Democrats admitted that this so-called ‘budget’ had over $2.5 billion dollars in mistakes in it,’’ said Rose, ‘’and it didn’t pay off one penny of the state’s unpaid bills, and that is on top of the fact that it isn’t balanced in the first place.’’
‘’Unbalanced budgets, higher income taxes, and no property tax relief for Illinois taxpayers – this is typical of Chicago Democrats,’’ added Rose.
The new spending plan was approved without one Republican Senator supporting it. If approved by the House and signed by Governor Bruce Rauner the plan would increase the Illinois personal income tax from 3.75 to 4.95 percent. And the Corporate Income Tax would rise from 5.25 to 7-percent. Also, for the first time, customers would pay sales taxes on certain services in the state – including dry cleaning and laundry services, storage units, and tattoos. The sales tax rate on those services would be 6.25 percent. In addition there would be a new tax of 6-percent on satellite and streaming services. Dish TV is already speaking out against the proposed new tax.
Prior to the Senate vote, Governor Rauner went live on Facebook saying if lawmakers want to see a state budget approved they must come to terms on a property tax freeze. The Governor wants more than a two year property tax freeze, and he wants to let voters decide whether property taxes should ever go up.
