Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Will the "cutting committee" cut much?

By Jamey Dunn and Hilary Russell
The state’s budget deficit could be worse than Gov. Pat Quinn’s projection of $11.6 billion next fiscal year. But some education-funding reform advocates see a silver lining in that the dire budget constraints could open the door for a longstanding effort to restructure the way Illinois pays for public education.


They’re again supporting a so-called tax swap, which would increase the state income tax and expand the state sales tax to apply to services. The new revenues would help offer property tax relief. Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago Democrat who has been pushing the idea for seven years, says relying less on property taxes to fund public education would help address funding disparities between property rich and property poor school districts.

We’ll find out tomorrow morning whether such tax reforms will be included in a series of recommendations that a special bipartisan committee will pass along to legislative leaders as they try to figure out how to balance next year’s state budget. The special committee is led by a rare co-chairmanship of one Democrat and one Republican. Sen. Donne Trotter is the Democratic chairman. He said the committee is considering recommending such revenue changes as a tax swap, as well as other changes to the public employee pension system, that both parties can support.


“There’s probably going to be a larger stack of things that we could agree upon than things that we can’t,” Trotter said. However, he added that there’s a good chance that the committee could produce a majority and minority opinion reports.

Trotter said Meeks’ tax reforms have support from committee members of both political parties.

Legislators’ reluctance to raise state income taxes has been one of the main roadblocks to various tax swap proposals advanced in the past seven years, but Meeks said the likelihood of an income tax hike this year creates a “now or never” opportunity for reform. The latest proposal, SB 750, would raise the state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent for individuals and from 4 percent to 8 percent for corporations.

While the tax reforms traditionally have been proposed as a way to reform education funding, Meeks said he’s open to using new tax revenues to plug the state’s budget deficit for up to two years. But then it would have to switch to fund education. If lawmakers only consider the deficit, he said, “we’ll end up raising taxes, but we won’t end up fixing anything.”

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, supports Meeks’ plan for education funding and said there’s an added reason (scroll down) to reform the state’s tax structure. “The bottom line is Illinois cannot get to a balanced budget situation without adjusting both of its major taxes,” he said. He added that expanding the state sales tax could allow for a lower rate.

The Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois opposes the bill because, according to organization president Tom Johnson, property tax is a reliable revenue source for local governments even in hard times. He added that the state may not be able to keep up with the property tax relief, which he said could “vanish in a relatively short period of time.”

Tomorrow morning’s Budget Deficit Reduction Committee will wrap up four weeks of testimony, which started out by focusing more on what agencies and advocates couldn’t live without than what they were willing to cut. The last two meetings have changed the focus to more concrete examples of ways the state could generate money while it also saved money.

Sen. Matt Murphy, the Republican co-chair from Palatine, said: “I love the idea of restraining future growth for spending because there’s never gonna be enough tax revenue if we don’t get a handle on the spending. I look forward to coming out with a collection of deficit reduction measures that we think can help fill this hole and do it in a way that’s productive for the long-term benefits for the state.”

1 comments:

Anonymous,  9:01 PM  

Al Sanchez is a criminal and all around horrible human being for many reasons beyond what came up at trial or the charges or convictions.

Al Sanchez has an interesting history since he brought money to the El Rukn street gang with than State Rep Larry Bullock at the behest of his then master Ed Vrdolyak--the money for the El Rukns was for them to support Jane Byrne in 1983--the El Rukns (former Black P Stone Nation) including the Apache Rangers took the money and supported Harold Washington.

Al Sanchez ran on the Solidarity ticket with Ed Vrdolyak against Harold Washington in 1987 (I can't remember if it was for City Clerk or City Treasurer) and than became a Republican. Sanchez remained a Republican and Vrdolyak aligned for only a short period of time because he quickly went with Mayor Richard M. Daley in time for his 1989 mayoral victory through a deal for jobs brokered by Gilbert "Chiefy" Delgado aka "Thiefy" (a long criminal record--and known as a theif) and Mayoral Boss Tim Degnan.

A brief digression here--Gilbert "Chiefy" Delgado aka Thiefy's brother Dominic Delgado had Delgado erection and got lots of political affirmative action contracts through Victor Reyes but also since the days of Vrdolyak being in charge. An investigation just into the Delgado contracts would reveal a lot.
Senator Tim Degnan from Bridgeport was known as a degenerate gambler and was into the outfit for 90G back in the late 70s and early 80s. Degnan had an outfit bookie and a major gambling problem. Degnan is involved with Roti relative Tommy DiPiazza aka Tommy D on the Brideport Village deal. Degnan along with Freddie Barbara (identified in Family Secrets Frank Calabrese trial as a made member of LCN and committed violent acts including arson in an Elmwood Park restaurant and extortion), Al Sanchez and Victor Reyes have a very kinky deal going with ALLIED WASTE--so don't worry about Statute of Limitations or that Reyes or Degnan are out of government.

Degnan is the power behind the thrown and the shadow mayor along with Jeremiah "Jerry" Joyce.
HDO was created by Degnan and used by Degnan and Joyce and is about as far from "Latino empowerment" as you get.

Al Sanchez is a unique scumbag insofar as he is an alcholic (well documented in arrests, car accidents and plenty of eye witnesses), cocaine addict (he hooked his wife and she died--the story of his wife's death is a story in and of itself), drunk driver, violent, bad drunk, power drunk, power hungry, mean, loud mouthed, vindicitve, low class individual.

Just google or Lexis some old news articles about Al Sanchez crashing his car and a shadow car leaving the scene where he was not the driver (city car) or getting pulled over and accusing the cop of racism on the tollway and saying "do you know who I am" or bar fights, car crashes, drunk driving pull overs that disappeared--read the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Daily Southtown--or talk to cops willing to talk. Al Sanchez and most of the HDO guys were pigs.
Aaron DelValle was the guy who went drunk with a gun to the towing pound after a political event with State rep and cop Eddie Acevedo and threatened the workers and tried to get their car out of the tow, punched a cop and sued the city for abuse and got thrown out of court.

Real scumbags.

Al Sanchez got plenty of drug dealers jobs like Gil Valadez (allegedly just lost his CTA job and previously lost his city job for not revealing he was a convicted felon--he smoked a crack rock on CTA time)
Gil Valadez was not only a drug dealer but also an informant.
GILBERT VALADEZ federal felony convict in federal penitentary and rat.

Larry "the Beaver" Diaz is another story and more on that later.

Also Ray Gamboas youthful indiscretions are interesting.

The gang ties are interesting.

Friends of Al's wife Tina want to know if he knew about Flo or Maria Nino (who became the bigshot at Personnel and was involved in taking out Ray Frias in 2003)

Al Sanchez would raise money on city time (just ask Marshall Villanueva). Thiefy Delgado would extort money on his birthday and always want cash in a mean thuggy way. Al Sanchez knew about money for jobs, sex for jobs, bribes, extortion, misuse of city services, drug dealing, drug use, gang affiliations, beating people up, adultery, picking up garbage for favored private businesses, plowing snow for favored restaurants.
Al Sanchez is proud of the job he did at Streets and Sans but garbage is terrible in many parts of a very dirty city (not just the front of downtown and Lincoln Park) Al Sanchez ruined the Blue Bag recycling program.
Al Sanchez increased taxpayers property taxes as well as fees with questionable and corrupt towing practices, recycling, and Hired Trucks.
Al Sanchez dealt intimately with Angelo Torres the former gang banger of Hired Trucks fame.
Al Sanchez also dealt with HDO member and donor to HDO and former 2-6 gang banger Tony Munoz--George Prado and his heroin dealing ring.
Al Sanchez hired Roberto "Bobby Bull" Aguilar who served 80% of a 5 year Federal drug charge and former drug dealer.

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