Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has been appearing this week at local schools tring to drum up support for a 33 percent income tax increase to ward off $1.3 billion in cuts to schools and universities. Thursday he visited schools in Springfield and Chicago. Monday he appeared at another in Sprinfield.
"We have to understand reality. We are now without a billion (stimulus) dollars that we counted on this year, so we have to make it up. And I think it's very very important to make this decision that we aren't going to cut education funding. Instead we'll have a 1 percent surcharge for schools."
Time is of the essence, Quinn said, since the state will receive its last federal stimulus payment in July. The $1 billion in federal money was used to plug this year's education budget. "There's no scaring involved, the bottom line is the federal money is not coming."
The governor said dire consequences loom ahead if his tax increase is not approved to replace those federal dollars. "You're going to see a lot of young teachers, who just got out of school…they'd be the first ones laid off. And we're talking about 17,000 teachers in Illinois losing their jobs."
Quinn maintains that teachers and parents will understand and support his tax increase — it's just lawmakers who need to get the message.
You can read Ben's full report at: http://illinoisstatehousenews.com/2010/03/11/quinn-tax-or-education-cuts-not-a-scare-tactic/
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