You know these are desperate times when your choices are a tax increase or a bigger tax increase. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago released a report last Wednesday imploring us to own up to the “hard choices” (code for tax increases) we have to make to get the state out of its $106 billion budget hole. You heard right–$106 BILLION.

The Civic Committee recommends we raise the personal income tax by 1 percent, the sales tax by 1 percent, and extend the sales tax to cover services in order to take about $4.6 billion in new revenue from taxpayers. Reforming state pensions and medicaid will allegedly yield another $1 billion in new revenue through government savings. All this new revenue is supposed to stave of the imminent pension crisis and increase the state’s education funding formula.

So let’s make sure we’ve got the facts right: Illinois’ state government has irresponsibly run up a $106 billion tab and to fix it the government is going to tighten its belt by $1 billion, while taxpayers have to tighten theirs by $4.6 billion.

My only question is whether Menards sells pitchforks? I hope so.

The people of this state are inundated every week with stories of government fraud and abuse. Whether it’s an alderman’s kid getting a job he isn’t qualified for, or city employees collecting improper workman’s comp, or contractors having backroom deals with the city, or bureaucrats getting kickbacks for steering contracts to friends, or a Governor’s child getting a $1,500 dollar birthday gift, or whatever else it might be next week. And still, taxpayers are the ones expected to make “hard choices.”

The Civic Committees is right of course, the state’s finances are in a mess. It’s so bad that it really is difficult to see any way out that doesn’t include raising taxes. In fact, the Civic Committee’s recommendations are the best our state’s leadership has been able to come up. We can’t blame our business leaders for seeing the writing on the wall: it’s either a big tax hike or a bearable tax hike.

But the problem with the Civic Federation’s strategy is that the state’s spending glut is so out of hand no Illinoisan has any reason to think Springfield will behave differently with $5 billion more in the bank. That’s like giving a credit card to an alcoholic uncle and expecting him not to buy a round for the house. Almost to prove the point, the day after the Civic Committee’s report was released the Governor’s Health Care Task Force announced plans for 3.5 billion dollar universal health program.

Making the situation even more complicated is the widespread belief that new revenue is needed to repair growing funding disparities between suburbia and the inner city. A good chuck of the Civic Committee’s new funds are earmarked for education, $1.6 billion worth, $400 million or so for Chicago Public Schools.

CPS chief, Arne Duncan, was quoted in the Sun-Times saying he’d be able to “transform” Chicago’s schools with this new money. But it isn’t clear how. CPS expenditures have increased $452 million since 2002 and 60 percent of 4th graders still score “below basic” on NAEP reading tests.

Voters are concerned about funding gaps between Chicago’s public schools and those in the suburbs. The dirty little secret is that CPS has its own funding gaps. Let’s compare Whitney Young to Pope (where 95 percent of students are low-income) before we start worrying about New Trier and Wilmette. Of course, before we can do so we have to demand CPS publish those numbers.

Truth is, unless you give that $400 million directly to parents, there’s no reason to believe it will make any appreciable difference in the lives of most of Chicago’s school kids. Just like $5 billion dollars won’t have any appreciable effect on Illinois’ financial situation.

Maybe the state does need more money? Maybe a tax hike is inevitable? That’s not the point. There’s a principle at stake here; it’s called government accountability. Tax increases should be off the table until voters can have some measure of confidence their money is well spent and that politicians are willing to make “hard choices.” Until then, and I think I speak for many of us not feeding at the government trough, leave me alone.