Subscriptions to Jim Broadway’s Update can be found here.
Broadway wrote this as part of his report on last week’s Illinois General Assembly Pension Committee public meeting:
Which brings us to the unspoken idea – the revenue side of the equation. Rep. Lou Lange (D-Chicago) broached the topic at last week’s committee meeting, suggesting that the temporary income tax increase of 2011 should be made permanent instead of dropping from 5% of an individual’s taxable income down to 3.75% at the end of 2014.
Lang whimsically recited other possible revenue enhancers: expand the sales tax base to include services commonly covered by the sales tax programs in most other states; impose the income tax on pension income beyond a high amount each year.
Lang said the “gorilla in the room” – revenue increases – will have to be addressed sooner or later.
Fred Klonsky 
Graduated progressive income tax like other well run states would be best
I would agree as soon as Ill becomes a “well run” state. I won’t hold my breathe.
As divergent interest groups exhaust themselves bouncing old ideas off the inside walls of a box looking for solutions to the state’s massive debt and deficit, perhaps their growing frustrations will tear through the fabric of the box to a wider understanding that the box itself contains no solutions, only compromises pitting austerity measures against misleading promises in an atmosphere of confusion charged with inadequate information and outright lies. Real solutions exist only outside the box.
One possible solution is to establish a public Bank of Illinois. Then, instead of paying interest, the state would collect it. Such a bank could provide low-interest loans to rebuild the state’s vital infrastructure, provide adequate funding for schools, health care, pensions, and inner-city renewal projects. Does this sound too far outside the box? Actually it is already operating in North Dakota. North Dakota does not have budget deficits. Information concerning the function, the purpose, and the success of The National Bank of North Dakota is readily available on the Internet. Extensive information on public banking is also available from Ellen Brown, a research attorney and financial expert on public banking. In our advanced age of information technology, ignorance is no longer an excuse for inaction. Another possible solution is to establish state-owned corporations to handle the special needs of local communities, such as water treatment, transportation, energy, and housing. Such corporations could be financed by the Bank of Illinois.
If these suggestions conjure thoughts of evil decadent unworkable socialism, just compare them to current practices of large banks and corporate cartels getting hand-outs from the public treasury as citizens are losing their jobs, their homes, and their pensions. What should we call that? American enterprise? There is no end in sight to our current predicament. The American economy is not going to recover; wages, jobs, and security are not going to be restored; health care costs will continue to rise; and inflation will eventually wipe us all out unless we unlock our minds and break outside the box that is crushing in on us.