Illinois Governor Pat Quinn today challenged lawmakers to approve a hike in the state’s income tax. He insists the money is needed to avoid painful education cuts.
Quinn’s budget speech lasted just 20 minutes, laying out for lawmakers how he plans to balance a budget $13-billion dollars out of whack. He’ll borrow and delay bill payments for $11-billion, and make roughly $2-billion in cuts - more than half of that from education. But Quinn says there’s a way around the cuts to schools.
QUINN: My alternative is a 1-percent income tax surcharge for education.
If approved, residents would be taxed at 4-percent of their wages instead of 3-percent. That’s less than the increase Quinn pushed for last year, which failed in the Illinois House.
The new proposal met initial resistance: some groups argue against any tax hike, and others say the increase is far too little to fix the state’s finances.