The latest on the Democrats tax hike is just what we expected. While the clock is running out on this legislative session, they're trying to lower the personal and corporate income tax hike a tiny bit to get what they really wanted all along...

Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) floated a temporary, four-year increase in the 3-percent individual income tax to 5 percent instead of 5 ¼ percent as earlier proposed. They also pitched increasing the corporate income tax from 4.8 percent to 7 percent instead of 8.4 percent.

As part of the revised revenue package, spending increases would be capped at 1.7 percent per year over the four-year lifespan of the tax hike; any spending in excess would cause the tax rate to revert to its current level, legislative sources said.An infusion of new funds for schools and $325 property-tax rebates for homeowners remained part of the package, though they were tied to passage of the cigarette tax, which has been stalled in the House for months.

Even Democrats in the majority of both chambers are still nervous about voting for a tax hike, and are looking to a couple of Republicans to buy in, easing Democrats' full responsibility for hiking taxes and allowing the Dems to call the hike "bi-partisan."

It was unclear whether those changes would jumpstart the governor’s tax-hike push among Democrats. Most Republican seemed to be in lockstep against any tax hike and hoped to run out the clock on this lame-duck legislative session, which ends at noon Wednesday.

Quotes from the Naperville Sun