Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is touring the state, pushing his proposal to raise taxes to fund education.
With a group of elementary school students standing behind him, Quinn yesterday promoted his plan to raise the state income tax by one percentage point. He says that would prevent $1.3 billion dollars in cuts to education.
Some Republicans are accusing the governor of playing political games by tying what he calls a tax surcharge to school funding. Quinn was asked if linking school funds to the surcharge was an attempt to manipulate lawmakers into voting for a tax hike.
QUINN: Well, I hope they vote for it, but if you look at our budget, we’ve cut everywhere. We’ve cut human services; we’ve cut health care; we’ve had to cut all kinds of state operations. Cuts are everywhere. I said that right from the beginning of the speech yesterday that we’ve made serious cuts across the board in state government.
Quinn says lawmakers do have a choice. But they don’t have six weeks or six months to put it off.