Mitchell, Bivins: Tax increases are coming
DIXON – A state tax increase is coming to help reduce Illinois’ $13 billion budget deficit, two local Republican lawmakers predicted Friday.
“It’s not, ‘Is there going to be a tax increase?’” Rep. Jerry Mitchell said. “It’s, ‘How big is it going to be?’”
But Sen. Tim Bivins said any increase would have to come with sweeping changes in the state’s insurance and pension programs.
“If you’re ever going to have a tax increase, you have to have some basic, fundamental reforms,” Bivins said.
The two legislators spoke to about 75 people at a legislative luncheon at the Post House Ballroom. The program was conducted by the Dixon Area Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by KSB Hospital, Illinois Enterprise Zone Association, and the Telegraph.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Batavia, was supposed to attend, but was delayed in Washington, D.C., Chamber President John Thomson told the crowd.
Mitchell, R-Sterling, said afterward that a tax increase alone couldn’t solve the state deficit, and that deep cuts would be needed in spending.
Bivins, R-Dixon, agreed that a tax increase probably is inevitable – especially “if [Gov. Pat] Quinn is re-elected.” But he conceded it would be difficult for the state to reduce spending enough, under any governor, to eliminate the deficit.
And Bivins said that when it comes to pension reform, he would propose that changes begin with the legislators’ own program.
Mitchell, a retired school administrator, said the state budget had to emphasize the “needs,” which include children, education, and the disabled and elderly.
“Those guys have to be taken care of,” Mitchell said. “They can’t take care of themselves.”
Both legislators said discussion in Springfield about increased revenue centered on taking the state income tax to 5 percent; it’s now 3 percent.
“We have to see reforms first,” said Bivins, a former Lee County sheriff. “But there is going to be a lot of pain in the next 2 to 3 years.”
The state already is hundreds of millions of dollars behind in its budgeted support for education alone, and local agencies throughout Illinois are cutting back personnel and programs to try to cope without the promised state aid.
Bivins urged citizens to put pressure on legislators to make changes needed to rescue state government. The problem starts, he said, when voter turnout is less than 20 percent, as it was in this month’s primary election.
“If we want change, we need to get the message to people out there that you must get involved,” he said.
Asked about limiting the terms of elected officials, Bivins – who served five terms as sheriff – said voters could remove politicians at any election.
“We can limit terms if we all get involved,” said Bivins, who is in the middle of a 4-year term and not on the 2010 ballot.
But Mitchell, who must seek re-election every 2 years, agreed that no change in law was needed.
“I feel like I’ve got term limits all the time, every 2 years,” he said. “I think we do it right.”
Bivins has, however, filed a bill that would limit the terms of legislative leaders. That bill would be unlikely to pass in the House, where Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has presided for 27 years.
