The Illinois House voted on Thursday to override Governor Bruce Rauner's budget veto, ending a two-year stalemate that has deprived public universities and social service agencies from much of their state funding.
The $36 billion dollar budget passed Thursday is funded partially by a nearly $5 billion income tax increase. It increases the personal income tax rate from 3.75 percent to just under 5 percent.
The vote at the Capitol was delayed as a woman was arrested for throwing white powder in Rauner's office, according to officials. She was arrested and taken into custody, the Captiol was taken off lockdown and lawmakers moved immediately to take up the vote on overriding Rauner's veto.
Quad Cities area Representative Mike Halpin (D-72) from Rock Island voted for the override. Tony McCombie (R-71) from Savanna, and Dan Swanson (R-74) from Alpha both voted "no."
Fifteen House Republicans broke with Rauner last weekend to pass the budget plan. But Halpin, a Democrat, initially voted no, saying the 32 percent tax increase would be too big of a burden on the working class people in his district. In a statement today he said flipped his vote when he realized that Rauner wasn't going to negotiate further.
"His veto left me with the unfortunate choice of overriding his veto and supporting a deal I couldn’t entirely agree with, or follow the governor over the edge, dragging local families down with us.
"Governor Rauner could have worked with us to go beyond the $3 billion in cuts we identified in our budget; together we could have finally made Chicago millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, and closed the loopholes big corporations use to rig the system. But the governor wasn’t willing to make those tough choices, so I did.”
Swanson says the spending plan will push more residents out of the state.
“This legislation does not sufficiently address the backlog of unpaid bills, does nothing but worsen outmigration from this state, and hurts the low to middle income families and job creators in my district," he said. "[W]e have young people who want to stay in Illinois, who want to work and start their families here, but they simply cannot afford the taxes in Illinois. Illinois’ net tax burden is the highest in the nation.”
Gov. Rauner in a statement immediately condemned the move, saying “Today was another step in Illinois’ never-ending tragic trail of tax hikes," and that the plan "is not balanced, does not cut enough spending or pay down enough debt, and does not help grow jobs or restore confidence in government."
The plan will apply retroactively to fund organizations from July 1, when Illinois entered its third year without a budget.