A press release from State Rep. Allen Skillicorn:
Representatives Allen Skillicorn and Jeanne Ives introduce balanced budget proposal with NO Tax Hikes!
Chicago, IL – The number one issue facing Illinois and impacting our budget is our inability to compete for jobs and economic growth. Illinois’ problems won’t be solved by another tax hike, obscure new revenue sources, or other schemes.
Economic growth drives everything else, economically and socially.
Illinois has fewer jobs today than we had 15 years ago.
If we don’t correct that problem, nothing else matters.
Since the year 2000, the 50 states combined have created almost 12 million net new jobs.
During the same time period Illinois has created no net new jobs, none.
Costs that businesses consider when looking to locate or grow in a state include Workers Compensation, Tort law and the state’s property tax climate, as well as the state’s political climate.
Tuesday I had the privilege to join my colleague Rep. Jeanne Ives to introduce an Alternative NO-Tax Balanced Budget Planthat is based on reforms, not tax hikes!
Constituents contact me everyday to tell me that Illinois taxes are too high and I agree.
Illinois residents do not receive a good return on their investment.
Property taxes are driving seniors, small businesses, and working class families out of state.
We need bold leadership and transformative policies.”
Skillicorn and Ives were joined by John Tillman and Michael Lucci form the Illinois Policy Institute for a Tuesday morning press conference at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago to unveil the plan.
The Alternative NO-Tax Balanced Budget Plan includes reforms like shifting state employees into defined contribution retirement plans, a property tax freeze, and other cost saving proposals.
I’m waiting to see Skillicorn and Ives introduce this in bill form.
That will be fun.
How many votes would this plan get?
Any more votes beyond Ives and Skillicorn?
And they accomplish this “budget” by kicking hundreds of thousands of people off of Medicaid, slashing education spending, made-up pension savings, etc.
Also – they want to completely slash LGDF (which is where the state sends local governments money from the state income tax), push massive amounts of pension liability from the state and on to local school districts, AND freeze property taxes.
And they want to pay for it at the local level with mythical savings.
This a joke.
Wait, didn’t Skillicorn just float a resolution that there shouldn’t be a shift of the pension liability back to the school districts?
Is it possible that he did that to try and cover his butt by claiming that he doesn’t support something written in his own bill?
So Allen’s going to dump on us big time right out of the box.
But, really, are we surprised?
Yea… Allen wants it both ways.
He’s opposed to shifting pension costs to the school districts.
And then supports, and claims he is going to introduce, a budget proposal that does exactly that.
The trolls are out in force.
Move to another Country assholes.
You have a plan that will help correct a sinking state without raising taxes, which is the alternative to the plan proposed from the people who got us here and it sounds good.
Why would anyone bitch about that!
This guy is just like Mcweeney he makes up bills that he knows will go nowhere and try’s to take credit for doing something.
But really it all adds up to nothing but whoopla.
Skillicorn needs to Go!
and he can take his mentor Mcweeney with him.
Farmer, what would you be willing to cut to enact this plan?
There is nothing wrong with the plan, but it is unrealistic to think it will get passed with a majority of democratics running Springfield.
So Luci, you’re ok with even higher college tuition and the cost of pensions being added to our property taxes?
And you’re ok with being charged more for your village services because that’s what this “plan” will do.
It doesn’t cut costs it shifts them in many ways and makes cuts to items and services that you want, like police, fire, safe and safe roads.
This plan was created by the Illinois Policy Institute, the propaganda wing of the corporate right in this state.
And you’re ok with giving local jobs going to companies outside the state and the lining of the pockets of insurance companies?
Because those things will happen if this ridiculous handout to corporations is actually enacted.
How many decades are you going to fall for the business BS that throwing money at corporations will create jobs?
We’ve been doing this for decades already – where are the jobs?
**Why would anyone bitch about that!**
Because its not a real plan?
Interesting that there is not a single penny of corporate welfare cut in this “plan”.
Golly gee, why might that be?
How much did Rauner make last year?
$118 million, right?
Up from something like $50 million.
Quite the increase in income.
How about you – how much more did you make last year than the year before?
Stop being rubes for the corporate elite.
Audrey, the cuts are laid out already. http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2017/01/31/it-really-possible-balance-state-budget-without-tax-hike
“The IPI says it can close the $7.1 billion deficit with five, big targets for savings:
$3.5 billion through shifting costs to local governments and taking away their share of the state income tax.
This plank of the platform also calls for a five-year freeze on local property taxes.
$1.6 billion in savings by changing the state’s underfunded pension systems.
Just over a billion dollars in savings by reducing the payroll for state employees, and by having the state’s largest union, AFSCME, abide by a new contract that cuts wages, requires workers to pay more for health care, and other changes.
Another $415 million would come from cutting off poor, childless adults who got on Medicaid thanks to Obamacare.
So, roughly 600,000 people would lose health care benefits.
Also, checking the Medicaid rolls.
And finally, cutting a half billion dollars from Illinois’ public universities”
This bill has no chance of passing.
I would guess most Republicans will not even support it.
We could propose cutting government spending to zero by sending everybody home and shutting everything down.
That doesn’t mean it’s a viable solution.
Remember the last time they tried to cut from the local government distributive fund?
I remember a lot of local governments in McHenry County pleading with Rauner to not do that; and it sounds like this bill completely eliminates the fund.
Plus throws off 600,000 people from Medicaid.
If you think your insurance prices are high now, wait until all these uninsured people start flooding emergency rooms.
Joe, you’re preaching to the choir.
The IPI and anything they push are usually good for only one group of people – the Rauner rich.
Dan Proft and his merry band of sycophants work hard to make the rich richer.