Why is Rep. Robyn Gabel sponsoring a new tax increase after getting the last one so wrong?

In January 2011 our Illinois Rep. Robyn Gabel wrote that she voted for the 66% “temporary” increase in the state income tax because it “will help balance the budget through the economic downturn…and allow the state to pay off its enormous backlog of unpaid bills.”

Here’s how it worked out:  The tax increase brought in $10 billion of additional money and the state now has record revenues, but not one dime went to pay off that backlog of unpaid bills.  All the new money went to pensions and Medicaid. Worse still, even with the new money our pension debt grew by $12 billion last year – and that’s using the state’s own phony numbers that are based on unrealistic assumptions and understate the liability.  The state’s other cash receipts and outlays were roughly equivalent at about $34 billion, so that pension loss means the state missed having an honestly balanced budget by a full 35% of the whole budget.

Now Ms. Gabel is sponsoring a measure that would create a progressive income tax, HJR CA0002.  Reasonable people debate the fairness of replacing our relatively flat income tax with graduated rates, but there’s no debate about this:  It’s a tax increase.  That’s why its supporters want it.  They estimate it would bring in $2 to $2.5 billion more revenue (highly doubtful it would be that much because taxpayers are fleeing, but never mind that for now).

Where will the new money go this time?  Why?  How much help is even $2.5 billion of new revenue when pensions are deteriorating at $12 billion per year? Can Robyn Gabel or anybody else who botched the last tax increase so badly answer with any credibility?

Ms. Gabel went on to write in 2011 that it’s “easy to engage in platitudes and make false promises about being able to solve our fiscal crisis without finding new revenue - in fact, that is exactly what got us into the horrible mess we are in now.”

No. “Finding new revenue” is the platitude if that new revenue is swallowed by unanswered problems.  Illinois has many unanswered problems, pensions being the biggest, for which Ms. Gabel has offered no real solution.  She supports the Nekritz-Biss pension proposal but it would only trim about $30 to $40 billion off of the $200 billion unfunded pension liability that grows by millions every day, and it guaranties continuation of doomed plans by allowing courts, at the request of pensioners, to seize state cash and redirect it into those pensions.  

Ms. Gabel has no business sponsoring another tax increase.

Mark Glennon, Founder, WirePoints.com