The Illinois General Assembly formally buried Gov. James Thompson`s proposed tax increases Tuesday night, passed most of a bare-bones budget and lumbered past its adjournment deadline for the 17th consecutive year.
While the final rites were being read for the tax increases, Thompson and legislative leaders pointed fingers at each other for a second day over the demise of the proposal and the budget cuts that the governor says are not far behind.
Suffering perhaps the biggest legislative defeat of his 11-year tenure, the Republican governor blamed the Democratic-controlled legislature for not addressing pressing fiscal needs.
He singled out for criticism House Speaker Michael Madigan (D., Chicago), who maintains a large majority in the lower chamber but never pushed the tax increase.
”I think I made the case,” Thompson told reporters outside his Capitol office. ”I think they are all covering themselves now . . . because they are going to go home having failed the people of Illinois.”
But Madigan said it is Thompson who failed to muster legislative support for a tax increase from the leaders of his own party, Senate Minority Leader James ”Pate” Philip (R., Wood Dale) and House Minority Leader Lee Daniels
(R., Elmhurst).
In Chicago, Mayor Harold Washington, who faces the increased likelihood of having to deal with a school strike this fall and possible property tax hikes, called the defeat of the tax plan ”unfortunate” and urged Thompson to order a special session soon on the subject of tax increases.
But Thompson and lawmakers said a special session on taxes before October is unlikely. They said that passing a tax increase would be even more difficult in the fall because it would require an extraordinary three-fifths legislative majority to pass and would be closer to next spring`s primary election campaign.
”There`s no point in calling a special session unless you`ve got the votes,” Thompson said.
Philip and Daniels both blamed Madigan for the lack of movement on a tax increase, and Philip also chastised Washington for not playing a more active, personal role in the tax debate. In the latter days of the session, Rep. Carol Moseley Braun (D., Chicago), Washington`s floor leader in the House, represented the mayor in budget talks.
”Where was the mayor?” Philip asked. ”Where has he been the last month?”
After the finger-pointing subsided, the legislature passed virtually all elements of a fiscal year 1988 budget, but a dispute over the mental health department budget shoved the General Assembly past its midnight June 30 deadline. The legislature has not adjourned on time since 1970.
Democrats said the budget they send to Thompson is only about $188 million above current spending and can comfortably be funded with existing dollars and natural, inflationary growth in the budget. They estimate growth to total about $313 million.
But they acknowledged that their budget does not include the repayment of a $100 million short-term loan the state got earlier this year to ease a cash- flow crunch.
Thompson and others proposed increases in income tax rates ranging from $700 million to $1.6 billion. He also had proposed a 9.5 cent-a-gallon hike in the 13-cent gasoline tax.
Thompson has said that without a tax increase he will be forced later this month to pare about $370 million, or 4 percent, across the board from the general revenue fund. ”The Draconian cuts that Thompson is suggesting are, in fact, unnecessary at this stage of the proceedings,” said Sen. Howard Carroll (D., Chicago), chairman of the Senate Appropriations I Committee.
Carroll and other Democrats asserted that Thompson`s threats to lay off 3,000 state workers, close Menard Correctional Center in Downstate Chester and impose sweeping layoffs in the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities are unnecessary. Under the General Assembly`s budget, elementary and secondary education would stand to gain about $16 million, while higher education would receive an additional $8 million.
Thompson said Monday that elementary and secondary education would have to be cut $113 million and higher education slashed $47 million below current levels.
Jacqueline Vaughn, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said Tuesday that the reluctance of the legislature to enact an income tax increase will create ”a serious situation” for Chicago public schools in September, but she avoided suggesting a strike. On a statewide basis, State School Supt. Ted Sanders said earlier this week that the failure of the tax plan could create significant labor tensions this fall and could jeopardize the future of the Math and Science Academy in Aurora.
He and other education officials said the lack of new money also could stall the education reforms passed by the legislature in 1985.
The legislative-approved budget includes an additional $91 million above current spending for the Department of Public Aid. Taking Madigan`s lead, the legislature rejected Thompson`s call Monday for cuts in welfare grants to public aid recipients.
Thompson said that without the welfare cuts he would have to make deeper across-the-board cuts in other state agencies because public aid represents a significant part of the overall budget.
Late Tuesday, mental health advocates in the Senate were holding out for more money for that agency. But mental health was expected to get at least $42 million in additional aid above current spending levels.
Under the legislature`s budget, the Department of Corrections would receive about $22 million more and the Department of Children and Family Services would get $2.6 million more.
