SPRINGFIELD -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady gave some details on Tuesday about his plan to create more jobs and acknowledged that parts of his plan would add as much as $1 billion to the state’s $13 billion budget deficit.
Brady, who also announced a two-year $3,750 tax credit for each new job created by a business, pledged to make cuts to offset the lost revenues from eliminating the sales tax on gasoline, cutting fees and eliminating a gap between the state and federal estate taxes.
“I’ll have to cut $1 billion for those tax cuts until they replenish themselves,” Brady told reporters while visiting Prime Panels, a business on Springfield’s north end. “By bringing jobs back and creating a fabric and an environment for that, revenues will grow once again.”
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, trailing Brady in polls, went on an extended soliloquy blasting Brady for not offering a more detailed plan to balance the state budget.
“He doesn’t have the courage to come forward and tell us his budget before the election,” Quinn told reporters at an unrelated event in the parking lot of Mario’s restaurant on Clear Lake Avenue. “He says you’ve got to wait until after the election. … We’ve had Republican governors in the past who’ve said a lot of things that sounded good before the election.
“(Former Gov.) Jim Thompson said he wasn’t going to raise taxes before the election. He raised taxes after the election. … We need a truth-telling governor, not someone like Senator Brady.”
But Quinn declined to answer questions about the specifics of his budget plan, which includes increasing the state income tax from 3 percent to 4 percent to support education.
Quinn said last week that part of the revenue from that tax increase would be used to reduce local property taxes. On Tuesday, the governor declined to detail how that tax increase, which has been estimated to raise roughly $3 billion, could pay for education, reduce property taxes and eliminate the budget deficit.
There also was a dearth of details on Brady’s economic development plan. It calls for overhauling the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which Brady says is a failed agency. But Brady could not say whether there would be layoffs in the department.
“Until we’ve completed our comprehensive audit, it’s hard for me to answer your question specifically,” Brady said.
Brady’s plan also sought to link Quinn to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s proposal for a gross-receipts tax, even though Quinn, who was Blagojevich’s lieutenant governor, fought the tax idea.
