Quinn promotes tax credit, lashes out at Brady
Gov. Pat Quinn promoted a small business tax credit on Monday that he accused Republican Bill Brady of wanting to lower, while Brady's campaign said Quinn was distorting the downstate senator's platform.
The tax credit Quinn signed into law is $2,500 for new hires at businesses with 50 or fewer people.
Brady voted for the legislation, although he also has called for a $2,100 tax credit for all businesses that create jobs in the state, not just small businesses.
"Senator Brady wants to reduce that from $2,500 to $2,100. That's the wrong direction," Quinn said at a government news conference where he spent a significant amount of time attacking Brady, although it wasn't a campaign event.
Brady's campaign cried foul.
"Once again Pat Quinn is distorting and manipulating Bill Brady's record," said Patty Schuh, a spokeswoman for Brady who last week won the endorsement of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.
Schuh said Brady's tax credit plan would apply to all businesses "because a job is a job."
Quinn said the state has programs to help big businesses.
"We don't have to take some of the largest corporations on planet earth and hand out tax incentives to ... British Petroleum or somebody like that. We want to target our tax credits in a very focused way to our small businesses that are right here in Illinois, not multinational corporations," Quinn said.
The tax credit went into effect last month. So far 143 companies have registered for it with 92 jobs meeting the criteria, said Marcelyn Love, a Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity spokeswoman. The full-time jobs must be a minimum of 35 hours a week and pay no less than $13.75 an hour -- or about $25,000 a year.
Quinn and Brady are battling it out in a close race that has grown increasingly contentious. The Green Party's Rich Whitney also is running.
On Monday, Quinn again defended his decision not to fire his state Department of Corrections chief after a report saying the department failed to consider possible dangers to the public when it tried to save money by granting early release to prisoners, some of them violent.
Brady has called on Quinn to fire corrections Director Michael Randle. Quinn has heaped most of the blame on Randle, who has said Quinn ordered that violent offenders not be part of the early-release program.
Quinn said Monday that Randle made a mistake but has done other good things in the department.
On Monday, Quinn also signed a law creating a tax amnesty program, allowing those who are overdue on tax bills to pay up with no penalty. It applies to those who owe taxes from July 1, 2002 to July 1, 2009. The amnesty is from Oct. 1 to Nov. 8 and those who don't ante up face doubled penalties and interest after that period.
Brady was the Senate's lone vote against the program. Officials hope to raise $250 million.