At last we can safely forecast how Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois Republicans will reduce spending so as to balance our long-overdue state budget.
No, they haven't put anything in writing. Instead they're letting state Democrats lead with their chins. The Illinois Senate just passed, without a single GOP vote, a balanced plan featuring $2 billion in spending cuts and more than $5 billion in new taxes a start toward paying down $15 billion in overdue bills.
With the spring session wrapping up Wednesday, Republicans can now be coy, decrying the proposed tax increases and calling for more if unspecified cuts.
But, lo and behold, their GOP brethren in Washington have, more or less, spilled the beans. President Donald Trump issued his 10-year federal spending projection and it indicates exactly where Republicans think too much money is being spent. And while our governor may not suffer from the flamboyancies that afflict our president, I'd argue their priorities are not that different.
The Trump plan, coupled with the GOP's Obamacare replacement, would reduce federal spending over 10 years from the Medicaid program for low-income and disabled Americans and the Children's Health Insurance Program by $616 billion. Meanwhile, spending on the military would be increased more than that amount.
The U.S. Department of Education would take a 13 percent cut, ending, for instance, subsidies for afterschool and summer programs. Gov. Rauner, not coincidentally, is pushing for a four-year freeze on property taxes, about two-thirds of which go to fund Illinois public schools. Squeeze play.
Other savings under Trump's 10-year plan would come from a $190 billion diet imposed on the SNAP food stamp program, a $143 billion cut to student loans, a $40 billion tightening of the earned income tax credit for low-wage workers, and a $72 billion trimming of benefits for the disabled.
Anybody see a pattern here?
The closest similarity between Trump and Rauner priorities, however, has less to do with budget cuts than their faith in the power of tax cuts to boost economic growth, create jobs and prod the "able bodied" from welfare to workplace.
Many economists are dubious, but Trump hopes to spur the economy by eliminating the inheritance tax and the alternative minimum tax; lowering the top rate on individuals to 35 percent; and slashing the corporate rate by more than half to 15 percent. If the latter change flies, look for a lot of savvy high-earners to begin selling their services as corporations.
Back in Illinois, Rauner has indicated he'd go along with increasing individual and corporate income tax rates, but only in return for that school-stiffing property tax freeze, plus an assortment of nonbudget items ranging from political remap reforms to term limits on elected officials.
My hunch all along, though, is that Rauner, despite his professed concerns for Illinois' business climate, already has what he wants. To wit: a regressive, nongraduated state income tax; and property taxes that, while high, are fully deductible from one's federal taxable income. For the very wealthy, it doesn't get much better than this, short of moving to Montana.
So as we head into the stretch drive in Springfield, don't look for this governor to reach for the budgetary olive branch offered by Senate Democrats.
That's not his game. Nor is it the game of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who likely views the only solution as the defeat of Rauner in the 2018 elections.
Between now and then, a lot of people will suffer as state-funded social services and education programs wither, and Illinois' credit rating tanks.
Ironically this will be bad for business, as the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago reminded us, somewhat belatedly, in its recent analysis.
But others have their own priorities. And while our governor's may be at times obscured, our president's are now out there for all to see.
John McCarron teaches, consults and writes on urban affairs.
Link:
Balancing a budget the Republican way - Chicago Tribune
