UPDATE, 1:20 p.m.: State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican and a state’s arch mercantile officer, came out currently with a matter ancillary a slots-at-the-tracks proposal, and also ancillary an boost in a state’s cigarette tax. She pronounced a state’s $8.5 billion reserve of delinquent bills creates it necessary.
From a statement: “I am not prone to support any taxation or price increases, though can behind a cigarette taxation supposing that vicious spending cuts are done and much-needed support of a equine racing attention is passed. Our biggest problem in this state is spending, and that has to be addressed. But a existence is that increasing income also has to be a partial of balancing a budget, and this concede accomplishes that as well.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Are “slots during a tracks” back in play in Illinois?
The on-again, off-again offer to concede Illinois horseracing marks to horde container machines might be underneath contention in state bill negotiations. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has been a hardcore competition of a idea, and he still hasn’t permitted it. But during one closed-door assembly with legislative leaders this week, he reportedly declined to echo his progressing confirmed opposition.
Capitol Fax, a Springfield domestic newsletter, reported on a assembly this morning, citing unnamed sources. We asked a Administration to hit it down, and they wouldn’t. In an emailed response, Quinn’s bureau called a slots offer a “distraction”—but didn’t echo a flat-out antithesis (and halt threat) that Quinn has formerly voiced on a issue.
We asked a second time if Quinn is still totally opposed, and got a same non-answer.
“We’re conference a same rumors,” pronounced Tony Somone, executive executive of a Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association. “We’re carefully optimistic.”
Fairmount Park in Collinsville is among those pulling a slots-at-the-tracks plan. It seemed headed for full thoroughfare by a Legislature final year though stalled after Quinn pronounced he would halt it. “We have no seductiveness in a state apropos a Las Vegas of a Midwest,” Quinn pronounced during a time.
The state now faces another tough bill year, with delinquent bills, appearing grant and Medicaid debts, and singular income options after carrying recently lifted a state income tax. The slots offer was presented as a approach to rescue a struggling horseracing attention while providing a new income tide to a state, that would taxation a container profits.
The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn for a summer on May 31.
