07 July, 2017
Illinois's state government has gone without a budget for almost two years mainly because of an impasse between the Democratic-led legislature and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, but Rauner's veto of a fiscal-year 2017 budget was overridden Thursday in the House.
"Today, Republicans and Democrats stood together to enact a bipartisan, balanced budget and end a destructive, 736 day impasse", House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, said after the votes.
About $5 billion in additional revenue will be collected through to the tax hike. "It proves how desperately we need real property tax relief and term limits".
The first-term governor and most of the Legislature are up for election in the fall of 2018.
Scherer said she heard from state universities, hospitals and school districts about the problems they would face if the budget impasse continued for any longer. The corporate rate jumps to 7 percent from 5.25 percent.
Syverson cited an article from the Daily Herald that listed the effect of the tax increase on various types of taxpayers.
"Our budget agreement was made possible by legislators on both sides of the aisle, who looked beyond partisan differences and put the best interest of our state and its residents first", Madigan said. "The state is imploding financially". "Illinois now has unfunded pension liability of over $100 billion".
But on Wednesday, a third credit-rating agency, Moody's Investors Service, put IL under review for a downgrade even if lawmakers reversed the veto.
The restoration of state funding also should serve to increase purses in Illinois-bred stakes races, though there are none left on the Arlington stakes schedule for this meet.
According to Rep. John Cabello (R-Machesney Park), lawmakers are not being allowed into the Capitol building while police investigate a potential hazardous substance near the Governor's Office in the Capitol Building.
He says a preliminary analysis shows the substance wasn't hazardous, which prompted authorities to reopen the building after Thursday's roughly two-hour lockdown.
One person is under arrest following a suspicious powder situation at the Illinois State Capitol.
