Illinois Valley Times

State Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) could see the handwriting on the wall when it comes to this year’s $43 billion state budget.

“This year’s state budget was filed 10 minutes to midnight and was 3,000 pages in text. What could possibly go wrong?” Demmer said in a video posted to YouTube. “Well, we were able to identify several things that were wrong with this year’s budget, including legislative pay raises, a billion dollars in pork projects for Democrat-only districts, $650 million in tax increases on Illinois businesses and zero dollars to pay down the $5 billion debt in the unemployment trust fund, and including a list of articles in the bill that did not have an effective date and now we have to come back and clean that up.”

Demmer contends the subsequent actions of Gov. J.B. Pritzker have only made the situation worse.

“When the bill landed on Gov. Pritzker’s desk, he had the opportunity through his amendatory veto to correct those problems, instead he did nothing,” he said. “He left the budget untouched, flaws and all, except changing a few dates. We all know that’s not the way a budget is supposed to work, not the way democracy is supposed to work. The governor abdicated his responsibility and facilitated government working like that. It’s inappropriate and that why we’re coming forward to call for increased transparency, increased public participation in a legitimate budget making process.”

 Demmer argues, based on the way the budget was revealed, Republican lawmakers only learned of some of its issues with it at the last hour.

“In order to balance the budget, it relies on $600 million in tax increases on Illinois businesses,” he said. "These are changes that affect businesses’ ability to recover from the pandemic and limit the ability for businesses to claim operating losses year to year. One of the changes raises their taxes by limiting their ability to recover from those losses."

Demmer said Democrats are reinstating taxes that had been discontinued with bipartisan agreement.

“There’s also a tax that will now impose a corporate franchise tax,” he said. “The Democrats broke previous agreement and are going back on getting rid of those taxes.”