Tribune Editorial-Quinn's tax plan(s)

Two weeks ago in this space, we wrote that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady has a disadvantage: Many voters don't know who he is or what he would do about the state's budget shortfall or its immense pension obligations. We also said he has a bleepin' platinum advantage: He isn't Pat Quinn. In recent days, Quinn and his top money people have done their best to prove us right. Consider:

Some politicians concoct November Surprises, stunts they'll unveil after they get past all those pesky voters in elections. Not Team Quinn. From these folks you can get almost any financial plan you want except for the smart one: aggressively restructuring state government for maximum efficiency and minimum spending, and only then asking if a tax increase is or isn't necessary.

Instead, he and his finance ministers have offered multiple plans for you and your money. If Brady doesn't yet have a story to tell, Quinn's folks have multiple stories they can't get straight. Follow along:

• In 2009, the Illinois Senate passed, and Quinn supported, a bill that would raise the personal income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent. The House demurred.


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• In 2010, Quinn proposed what he euphemistically calls a 1 percent education surcharge to the income tax. The idea is to attract support from voters sympathetic to education but less sympathetic to "tax increase."

• On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Quinn budget director David Vaught had predicted during an interview that, in January, Illinois lawmakers would raise the income tax by 2 percentage points. Quinn, in full damage control mode, on Thursday admonished Vaught for speaking out of turn, said Vaught's remark was "misconstrued" and added that a Bloomberg reporter from out of state didn't understand what Vaught said. Quinn reiterated his support for a 1 percent income tax increase — sorry, a 1 percent surcharge for education — and added that he would veto anything else.

• The wheels fell off that "misconstrued" explanation Friday when the Capitol Fax Blog posted a video recording of Bloomberg's interview with Vaught. His words: "We fully expect that we're going to pass a tax increase in January. We think it's going to be substantial." Asked to define "substantial," Vaught explained Quinn's support, variously, of a 2 percent hike and a 1 percent hike and concluded, "To me that's the range of possibilities." Then John Sinsheimer, Quinn's director of capital markets, made 2 percent sound like Quinn's true goal: "The overseas investors we talked to, when we told them we could balance the budget with a 2 percent increase in individual and corporate income taxes, that pretty much raises about $6 billion, slightly less than that — that's the deficit." The overseas investors, he added were impressed. "They looked at us and said, 'Only a 2 percent increase?' They were amazed by that."

• Illinois taxpayers may be amazed too. We can't top the headline on Bloomberg's follow-up story: "Illinois sends contrasting messages to bond buyers, voters on deficit plan." Oh, and about that supposedly clueless out-of-state Bloomberg reporter: Among the three Bloomberg journalists conducting the interview with Vaught and Sinsheimer was Flynn McRoberts, a former Tribune staffer and now Bloomberg's Chicago bureau chief.

• We doubt that the Quinn folks think taxpayers — including employers able to locate jobs wherever they find the best tax climate for business — will misconstrue what's happening here: The only people getting straight answers may well be the overseas investors who are lending Illinois taxpayers all the billions the Quinn administration is borrowing. And don't forget, a proposed tax hike is just part of the picture. Quinn wants lawmakers to approve another $3.7 billion in new debt for state pension payments. Democrats hope to engineer that approval in November — that's right, just after the general election.

You could go to Springfield to speak your piece to your legislators about that, except House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton sent your legislators on vacation. They didn't pass a balanced budget. They just dumped the question of what to spend where in Quinn's lap and headed home.

So recounting what Quinn and his folks have been saying, and saying, is as close as we can come to explaining Quinn's plan(s) for you.

We say that realizing that you may have plans for Quinn.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-quinn-0803-20100802,0,719691.story