Every
Republican governor this state has had for the past 40 years has raised taxes.
Republican
legislators and most of their leaders have always been involved with those tax
hikes.
So,
it's probably not fair that nobody bats an eye when every Republican candidate
for governor - announced and unannounced - is allowed by the media to get away
with saying that taxes shouldn't be raised to balance the state's horribly
deficit-ridden budget.
But,
that's life, I suppose. George
Ryan said he wouldn't raise taxes when he was running for governor,
either. The Republican candidate
didn't get a lot of grief for that, even though his public works plan was so
big that everybody at the Statehouse figured there was no way to avoid a tax
hike.
They
were right. Ryan flip-flopped
right after he was elected. Taxes
went up, and so did fees.
Once
again, pretty much everybody at the Statehouse knows that taxes will have to
rise in order to balance this massively out of whack budget.
Some
Republican gubernatorial candidates have talked about various budget
"reforms," even though many of those reforms are illusory at best.
Some
talk about deep cuts then quickly skip over the intense hardships those cuts
would produce.
At
least one is talking about borrowing to balance the budget, but the state's
bond rating has already taken multiple hits, and it's doubtful that anybody would
want to buy several billion dollars of bonds from a state that cannot show it
can responsibly balance its own budget.
Luckily
for the Republican candidates, taxes will almost assuredly have been raised by
the time next year's fall election rolls around. And the Republican candidates who are now state legislators
will not be forced to vote for a tax increase this year because they belong to
the minority party, so a handful of others in their party will likely be
obliged to take the plunge.
What
will likely happen is that a tax hike will pass long before the campaign even
starts to heat up. And then watch
all those candidates pontificate about how they would've done things
differently. Most will also
probably say they'll roll back those tax hikes, even though that probably won't
be possible until the economy has had a chance to fully recover, whenever that
may be.
Surveying
all this political posturing, is it any wonder that Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn
has found it so difficult to convince the Democratic controlled Illinois House
to go along with an income tax hike?
That rhetorical question is not, by the way, intended to defend the
House Democrats and their leader, Speaker Michael Madigan. They knew what the right thing to do
was, and they didn't do it. I
won't defend that behavior.
And
even though I think it's unfair to let Republican gubernatorial candidates off
the hook on the tax issue just because they're Republicans, I do believe it's
high time that Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan comes out of hiding and
expresses her views on this crazy mess.
We
don't know for sure as I write this what office Attorney General Madigan will
seek. She could run for governor,
she could run for US Senate, she could run for reelection.
We
do know, however, that every single poll taken in the past year has shown
Madigan to be, by far, the most popular politician in this state.
Other
statewide Democrats, like Comptroller Dan Hynes and Treasurer Alexi
Giannoulias, have said they were open to a tax hike. Hynes laid out a plan last
week, although wholly inadequate, which included major cuts, expanded riverboat
gaming and an expansion of the sales tax to some "luxury" services.
But
Lisa Madigan has been mum. She
said months ago that a tax hike would hurt people who were already hurting, yet
she's been silent ever since. A
group of protesters opposed to massive budget cuts marched to her Springfield
office last week to try and get an answer out of her. No luck.
If
the Republican candidates are being irresponsible, well, that goes double for
Madigan. As the most likely of all
candidates to win whatever office she seeks, she owes us all an explanation of
her views on this crisis.
Come
out of hiding, attorney general.
The sooner the better.
-30-
Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.