Illinois Valley Times

State Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) is no fan of the new $42 billion state budget, blasting the measure during a recent House floor debate as lacking transparency and potentially leading to an assortment of tax increases.

“These changes are going to result in an additional $660 million in taxes for Illinois businesses,” Demmer said in a video posted to YouTube. “The elimination of the franchise tax was an initiative that had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by the governor just about two years ago. Your proposal tonight freezes the phase-out of the franchise tax.”

Demmer argues the changes don’t figure to end there.

“Earlier this year when the governor proposed the budget, he proposed nearly $1billion of tax increases of one or another,” he said. “After we look at these hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes that businesses will owe, we also have to think about the over $5 billion of debt that will exist in the unemployment trust fund which, if not addressed, will result in significant benefit reductions for unemployment recipients and significant tax increases for employees.”

Demmer has also previously spoken out about capital project spending in the plan pegged for Democratic-only districts.

“These are federal funds, funded by people who pay federal taxes,” he said. “Each of us in every district in Illinois have constituents who pay federal taxes whose tax dollars have been collected and sent back to the states for equitable use. My question would have been, when you were making those capital requests and after you had visited the redistricting map room, did those capital requests come for your new districts or for your old districts?”

Demmer said it’s all just more of the business-as-usual way Springfield always seems to work.

“Mr. Speaker, we’ve talked many times in this chamber about it being a new day. The only new day is going to happen in five minutes when the clock strikes midnight because what we're seeing on this floor, the same dark old days that we've struggled under for years,” he said. “This is not appropriate; this is not the way things should be handled. We all know that. Let's give transparency a chance. The only change that happens here is change that we make happen.”