From State Rep. Jeff Keicher, whose district was gerrymandered into southwest Crystal Lake to keep Carolyn Schofield from running against Democratic Party State Rep. Sue Ness:
State Budget, Fighting New Taxes, Legislation Updates & More
May 9 was the deadline for House members to advance bills that have already passed the Senate through their respective committees in the House, of which, I have two that have advanced to the House Floor for debate that I will discuss below.
Any Senate bills not advanced out of House committees before May 9 are likely dead for the remainder of the spring session.
I say they are likely dead because the majority party often extends deadlines for Democratic bills, but only in extremely rare cases are Republican-sponsored bills given the same opportunity after a deadline.
Much of last week was spent in appropriations committee hearings as the May 31 spring session deadline is fast approaching, but even more time has been spent behind closed doors by Democratic leaders as they are once again blocking Republicans out of the process of actually drafting the state’s annual budget.
As you will read further below, the state is facing a dire fiscal situation after years of overspending and ZERO willingness to rein it in.
As I’ve said many times before, the state budget has ballooned from just over $39 billion in 2019 (the same year Gov. Pritzker and I entered office) to more than $54 billion under Gov. Pritzker’s stewardship.
Well, the unsustainability of this massive growth in state spending is finally coming home to roost.
A further barometer of what is to come was shown in the unexpected removal of Rep. Fred Crespo as Chairman of the Appropriations – General Services Committee by Speaker Welch. Rep. Crespo is a widely respected fiscally conservative/moderate Democrat when it comes to spending.
He routinely holds his Democratic members accountable for the spending measures they introduce.
- This week, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) predicted revenues dropping by more than $500 million.
- The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (CGFA) already predicted early this year that revenues would be even lower, half a billion less than the prediction this week from GOMB.
In addition, GOMB also reported that state spending for this fiscal year is now $1.6 billion above what had originally been budgeted for the year.
Plain and simple, it’s time for Illinois to finally tighten its belt and stop funding on all these progressive pet projects that taxpayers simply cannot afford.
Below are additional updates from the past couple of weeks and some other major news. As always, thank you for reading!
Guard your wallet! Tax hikes proposed.
A series of major tax hike proposals are being pushed by multiple groups as solutions to Illinois’ growing fiscal problems brought on by years of overspending by Illinois Democrats.
A “tax-and-spend” wish list totaling over $6 billion in new revenue was presented recently by the Illinois Revenue Alliance, a consortium that includes the Chicago Teachers Union, healthcare unions, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and other left-leaning special interests.
These proposed tax hikes target small businesses, investments, digital content, and more.
For more on this wish list of tax hikes – Click Here.
In addition, a proposal started floating around Springfield this week to institute a new statewide 6.25% sales tax on services to pay for a bailout of Chicago’s mismanaged mass transit system.
This new service tax would cover more than 80 services we all rely on, ranging from streaming services to dry cleaning, haircuts to vehicle repairs, and everything in between.
I’ve heard from many of you that the expansion of the sales tax to services may make sense in the larger context of a service-oriented economy, but there’s little trust in Democrats increasing taxes on anything, and certainly not unless there is a significant decrease in the total rate, not status quo.
For more on this service tax proposal – Click Here.
While neither of these proposals has been drafted into legislation yet; rest assured that I will OPPOSE these tax hikes if legislation should come before the House for a vote.
Illinois needs to start budgeting responsibly. Illinoisans are already taxed to the max and more taxes will only force more families and small businesses to leave our state.
