RAUNER ON TERM LIMITS
Gov. Pat Quinn’s running mate blasted Republican rival Bruce Rauner’s budget proposal as “fundamentally dishonest” on Monday as Rauner fired back that government is so “inefficient” and “wasteful” under the Democrat that it must be completely restructured.
Rauner last week offered up a plan to freeze property taxes, add a tax on services and reduce the state’s income tax to 3 percent — from 5 percent — over four years.
Paul Vallas, the lieutenant governor candidate running with Quinn, said Rauner’s plan would put the state billions of dollars in the hole. Vallas defended Quinn’s proposal to permanently increase the state’s income tax to 5 percent.
Rauner and Vallas made their points at separate news availabilities on Monday.
When asked if he could efficiently run state govern- ment with billions of dollars less annually as a result of his proposed income tax cuts, Rauner said he would phase in a reduction to the state’s income tax to eventually roll it back to 3 percent by the end of his first term as governor. Quinn had pushed through an increase to 5 percent, which sunsets in January, rolling the individual state income tax back to 3.75 percent. Quinn unsuccessfully sought to make it permanent in the last legislative session.
“We’ve got to look at our entire budget, and our entire tax code, we’ve got to put in many of the tax changes that we’re recommending, as well as the spending changes which we’ve begun to roll out and discuss in detail,” Rauner said. “Unfortunately our government is very inefficient, very wasteful and we’ve got to restructure.”
Rauner conceded that his proposal to expand sales taxes by taxing some services would not replace all the revenue lost through his proposed income tax cuts.
“It doesn’t make up for it 100 percent, it’s not intended to,” Rauner said. “We need to reduce the overall tax burden.”
Rauner’s camp put the revenue generated by services at $600 million. The next governor of Illinois is likely to face an estimated $6 billion budget hole.
While Rauner blasted Quinn as a tax-and-spend governor, Vallas shot back that Rauner’s agenda “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of government — or they don’t care.”
Vallas argued that Rauner’s budget would create an $8.5 billion hole in the state’s general revenue fund, which he argued would hit education funding.
“To say you want to in- crease education yet you’re going to slash the general funds budget . . . is fundamentally dishonest,” Vallas said. “You cannot do those kinds of cuts without totally devastating education.”
“The fundamental question is, how’s he going to fill the $8 billion hole,” Vallas said.
Meanwhile, Rauner said he would continue his push to get a term-limit initiative on the ballot — despite the Illinois Supreme Court’s refusal to immediately hear the case after a Cook County judge declared the proposal unconstitutional.
On Monday, the First District Appellate Court agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis.
“We’re asking this court to make an expedited decision, we think they owe it to you, they owe it to the voters of our state to make a prompt decision on this and then let the voters decide the issue,” Rauner said at a news conference at Harry Caray’s restaurant in River North.