You’ll recall that the governor campaigned on the idea of raising the income tax a bit (he never really said by how much) and then rolling it all the way back to 3 percent by the end of his first term. Those 2014 hopes of his are now completely dashed, but this shows you how far Cullerton was prepared to go this week. After all, the temporary nature of the 2011 income tax hike is what put Illinois into this current disaster. Do we really want to go through that again in five years?
The Republicans counter that Gov. Quinn’s biggest mistake was that he didn’t reduce spending by enough to deal with the rollback from 5 to 3.75 percent on January 1, 2015. They’re absolutely right about that. The Democrats did cut some spending, but not nearly enough. They just figured they’d either win again or that the newbie Rauner would be a pushover.