{"id":536315,"date":"2010-04-20T21:05:15","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T01:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ecd3beab970b"},"modified":"2010-04-20T21:06:17","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T01:06:17","slug":"tax-increase-supporters-could-shut-down-capitol-on-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/536315","title":{"rendered":"Tax increase supporters could shut down Capitol on Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Michelle Manchir and Monique Garcia<\/em> at 7:57 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Thousands of protesters are scheduled to descend on the Capitol Wednesday, potentially shutting the building down for a while as they press for a tax increase to stave off major budget cuts.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The protest will unfold against a backdrop in which Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing an income tax increase that lawmakers are reluctant to vote for ahead of the November election.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>On Tuesday, Republicans emerged from a budget meeting with Quinn and other top Democrats charging the governor wants more borrowing and more taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, charged that Quinn&#8217;s latest proposed budget solution would increase taxing and borrowing to $9 billion.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>\u201cIt\u2019s exactly the wrong direction,\u201d Radogno said. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The governor stood by his proposed 33 percent income tax rate hike, which would raise about $2.8 billion and also handed out to leaders a list of options for higher taxes on businesses that could raise $500 million a year, Republicans said.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Still far from being approved, the additional taxes being discussed range from raising the $50 million a year tax on canned computer software, a proposal ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to pass but failed, to a sales tax on downloaded music and videos, according to Republicans who distributed the list of potential tax revenues.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>Other proposals on the list would tax plastic grocery bags a nickel a piece and little cigars at the higher rate of cigarettes. A nickel-a-bottle deposit fee is another idea on the table. But Quinn&#8217;s budget director, David Vaught, said late Tuesday that the grocery bag and bottle deposit fees were part of a draft list, but did not make the final cut and are not being considered.<\/p>\n<p>The governor\u2019s proposal also proposed the option of eliminating a business tax credit for research and development.<\/p>\n<p><\/br>Quinn&#8217;s office said the governor told legislative leaders on Tuesday that he wants to cut next year\u2019s budget by an extra $400 million and borrow money from other state funds in order to pay down the state\u2019s growing backlog of bills. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Quinn\u2019s office did not specify where the additional cuts would be made, but the extra belt-tightening would come on top of $2.2 billion in cuts the governor has already proposed, spokeswoman Kelly Kraft said.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>Quinn also proposed selling off a portion of the revenue from a years-old tobacco lawsuit settlement, which his office estimates will generate approximately $2 billion to help pay down the estimated $6 billion backlog. The governor is also asking lawmakers to extend the time the state has to pay overdue bills in the hopes they will approve an income tax increase to help plug budget holes.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters, who will head down to Springfield by the busload, are from labor unions and social service groups. Organizers say they\u2019ll march around the Capitol behind the Springfield High School band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Michelle Manchir and Monique Garcia at 7:57 p.m.SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Thousands of protesters are scheduled to descend on the Capitol Wednesday, potentially shutting the building down for a while as they press for a tax increase to stave off major budget cuts.The protest will unfold against a backdrop in which Gov. Pat Quinn is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}