Illinois Senate votes to override veto
Budget plan includes tax increase targeted at reducing state’s debt
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.—The Illinois Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s vetoes of a $36 billion budget package fueled by a $5 billion tax increase designed to start digging out of the nation’s deepest budget crisis since at least the Great Depression.
The Democratic-controlled chamber completed its work within 30 minutes of the Republican governor’s vetoes, sending the package back to the House for an override vote that would give Illinois its first annual budget since 2015.
Fifteen Republicans defied their governor Sunday to give the House a vetoproof 72-vote majority on the tax hike. Whether they’ll stand firm against his influence and hefty campaign bank account to override the veto is the question.
It wasn’t answered Tuesday. A quorum of House members failed to show up on the Fourth of July holiday, prohibiting work. The House returns this morning but its leadership gave no indication of whether overrides are in sight.
“The package of legislation fails to address Illinois’ fiscal and economic crisis—and in fact, makes it worse in the long run,” the first-term governor wrote in a veto message that claimed the Democrats’ proposal remains $2 billion in the red. “It does not balance the budget. It does not make nearly sufficient spending reductions.”
Rauner’s role in stymieing a budget deal since taking office in 2015 has been to demand a freeze on local property taxes and “structural” changes to boost business. The governor acted about three hours after the Senate voted to hike the personal income tax rate by 32 percent. Individual rates would go from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent. Corporations would pay 7 percent instead of 5.25 percent.
Democrats say it provides the revenue bridge to fund a $36 billion blueprint, which also includes $2.5 billion in spending reductions.
“We are faced today with the fierce urgency of ‘now,’” the tax increase legislation’s sponsor, Sen. Toi Hutchinson of Olympia Fields, said Tuesday morning before the first vote. “We don’t have any more time. And too late is not good enough.”
With the GOP defection, the House approved the tax increase with 72 votes on Sunday, one more than necessary to override a veto. But House Speaker Michael Madigan announced shortly after the Senate votes that there would be no House action to override Tuesday, but his spokesman said he couldn’t answer why. Later, when only 54 members answered the House quorum call, Madigan and Republican leader Jim Durkin, of Western Springs, were among 64 absences.
Although there’s no firm deadline, credit-rating houses have vowed to downgrade the state’s creditworthiness to “junk,” signaling to investors that buying state debt is a highly speculative venture. The bond houses predicted a downgrade without a fix by the July 1 debut of the fiscal year—the third consecutive fiscal year Illinois has opened without an approved budget plan. But Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings gave Illinois some breathing room on Monday, issuing notices marking the House tax increase approval a day earlier and indicating they wouldn’t take immediate downgrade action.
Government has limped along for two years on the strength of court-ordered spending, but the state comptroller says the treasury will be $185 million short of what’s needed to cover basic services by August.
With a $6.2 billion annual deficit and $14.7 billion in overdue bills, the United Way predicts the demise of 36 percent of all human services agencies in Illinois by year’s end.