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* What are your thoughts on getting rid of daylight saving time?…
In 2019, the Senate passed a bill by @AndyManar that would've kept Illinois on permanent summer time and end pre-5 p.m. sunsets. But that was the last vote on the issue. Morgan's bill hasn't gotten a committee hearing
2/2 https://t.co/Z1WQQsYo07— Ben Szalinski (@BenSzalinski) November 3, 2023
* A quick look at Washington via Detroit News…
A new bill authored by a pair of House Republican lawmakers aims to prevent battery parts manufacturer Gotion Inc. from receiving federal tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act because its parent company is a Chinese firm.
The lawmakers, U.S. Reps. John Moolenaar of Caledonia and Darin LaHood of Illinois, said their legislation is in response to Gotion Inc., an American subsidiary of a Chinese-based company, planning to build EV battery materials factories near Big Rapids and in Manteno, Illinois, that would potentially qualify for the tax credits under the IRA.
The bill is notable in part because the Inflation Reduction Act’s pot of nearly $200 billion in advanced manufacturing credits is considered a major reason why foreign-owned companies such as Gotion are investing in U.S.-based factories.
The legislation is named the No Official Giveaways Of Taxpayers’ Income to Oppressive Nations (NO GOTION) Act, and would disqualify from green energy tax credits “any entity created or organized in, or controlled (in the aggregate) by, one or more countries of concern,” defined as China, Russia, Iran or North Korea.
* Rep. Marty Moylan…
State Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, recently introduced a bill that would help promote the use of electric vehicles (EVs) among owners and operators of vehicle fleets.
“Illinois is going electric, and I’m proud to be part of the movement to make sure our state remains a leader in the EV revolution,” Moylan said. “A huge part of that is encouraging a transition from fossil fuels to EV technology when it comes to the vehicle fleets that Illinois businesses use to move goods and services throughout our communities. That’s why I’m working to create a program to reward businesses that embrace innovation and help keep Illinois moving forward.”
Introduced in the House on Oct. 25, Moylan’s House Bill 4196 would require the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) to establish a program to provide grants to owners and operators of vehicle fleets to cover up to 80% of the purchase price of eligible electric vehicles. Grants would be awarded on a competitive basis according to available funding.
The IEPA would be required to consider the potential environmental impact of a given applicant switching to electric vehicles, based on geographic location and service routes. It would also be required to set aside 20% of the total funds appropriated specifically for applicants purchasing electric school buses. The program would be subject to appropriation by the General Assembly.
“Electric vehicles are safe, increasingly effective and sustainable. The economy of the future will be based on EVs and it’s important for Illinois to stay ahead of the curve,” Moylan said. “Promoting the adoption of EV technology by commercial fleets is a crucial step forward. I’m hopeful that this legislation can help us to take that step.”
* WSPY…
Plainfield Democratic State Representative Harry Benton is proposing a bill that would restore tax breaks for union members on things like union dues and equipment.
Benton says the tax breaks previously were in place:
“Some years ago we ended up losing all the tax breaks for all union members. So union dues, work assessment and even simple write-offs for mileage, work equipment, tools. That all went away. So what I’m trying to do is right a wrong. And try to implement this at a state-wide level so they can write this stuff off.” […]
The bill could be discussed during the spring legislative session next year, when many new bills are introduced.
House bill 4088 has been filed and is currently assigned to the House Rules Committee.
* Another bill from Rep. Benton…
State Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield, is working to help ease property taxes for older adults by introducing a bill to ensure they remain eligible for a key tax exemption amidst continued inflation.
“A person’s home is, perhaps, their most precious possession, and it is easy to understand why anyone, older adults especially, would wish to continue living in their home,” said Benton. “Unfortunately, many older adults in Illinois have been struggling with the demands of high property taxes and inflation. Increasing access to this program will help more of them remain in their homes with the dignity and security they deserve.”
Benton introduced House Bill 4202, which would raise the annual income threshold for the Senior Citizens Real Estate Tax Deferral Program to keep up with rising inflation. Since 2018, the deferral has been available to senior taxpayers earning less than $65,000 per household. Benton’s bill would increase eligibility to $85,000, to ensure older homeowners do not lose access to this program because of inflation and cost of living adjustments.
“It is heartbreaking when anyone is forced into selling their home because of property taxes,” Benton said. “Anything we can do to help older adults to stay in the homes they’ve worked for their entire lives, I think we have a moral duty to look into doing that.”
* Rep. Fred Crespo introduced HB4214 yesterday…
Amends the General Assembly Operations Act. Requires the Legislative Budget Oversight Commission to meet 2 weeks after the effective date of the amendatory Act and quarterly thereafter. Extends the repeal date of the Act’s provisions concerning the Commission from July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2026. Effective immediately.
* HB4215 from Rep. Kevin Schmidt…
Amends the Wildlife Code. Provides that it shall be unlawful to take wild turkey with a shotgun smaller than 410 gauge with shot density equaling tungsten super shot (rather than smaller than 20 gauge with shot size not larger than No. 4).
posted by Isabel Miller
Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:06 pm
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Comment by Anon 12:21 Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:21 pm
Jackie Haas should switch parties. There’s only one party whose position is “we should bring thousands of good paying jobs to Manteno,” and it’s not the Republicans.
Oh and LaHood, of course, doesn’t even represent Manteno.
Comment by vern Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:25 pm
Where are they taking those poor turkeys…on vacation?
Comment by Dotnonymous x Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:25 pm
How much is Big Turkey paying Rep. Schmidt?
Comment by Excitable Boy Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:31 pm
Lookee here Smiley (aka Son of the Confessed Congressman) has actually introduced a bill. Really. Lets see how far this goes. Wonder what caught his attention other then CommandoIves has been banging her drum for weeks
Comment by Annonin' Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:32 pm
I would love to get rid of the twice-annual time changes but instead of year-round daylight savings time, how about we get rid of DST and make standard tine permeant year-round?
Comment by Nick Name Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:35 pm
La hood is such complete fool. He is against jobs more than any person I have ever met who talks about increasing jobs all the time. He was against gaming expansion when he was in the ILGA and now against a battery plant. Thousands of American and Illinois jobs.
Benton has a terrible twofer.
Union dues should not be tax deductible, I ma not against unions but dues are voluntary and not a job expense.
=“It is heartbreaking when anyone is forced into selling their home because of property taxes,”=
I have been doing this for a long time and have never found a case where this really happened. If it happened in a district I served I definitely would have heard about it. I am sure it happened somewhere, but boy some data would be nice.,
Comment by JS Mill Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:38 pm
I’d love to have permanent summer hours but it’s not going to happen.
Comment by Proud Papa Bear Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:40 pm
In keeping with the season, China says BOO. MAGA GOP pols are jumping out of their suits.
Comment by Norseman Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:41 pm
I say keep it - I like preserving daylight in the afternoon in winter.
Comment by lake county democrat Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:42 pm
” … and make standard tine permeant year-round?”
No. Summer sunrise before 4 AM? What a waste of sunlight.
Comment by Anyone Remember Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:44 pm
== How much is Big Turkey paying Rep. Schmidt?==
I don’t know, my guess is the Turkey lobby will oppose this. A 410 is smaller than a 20 gauge, so this would give hunters more options with lighter loads.
Comment by fs Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:51 pm
==Plainfield Democratic State Representative Harry Benton is proposing a bill that would restore tax breaks for union members on things like union dues and equipment.
Benton says the tax breaks previously were in place:==
When were those tax breaks previously in place?
Comment by phocion Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 12:52 pm
Not a fan of seeing little kids heading to school in the dark for several months just so I can catch a brief glimpse of the sun when I leave work in early winter.
Comment by Dance Band on the Titanic Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:02 pm
If Republicans are so concerned about Chinese products then lets close Wally World and every other store.
Comment by Jerry Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:12 pm
Would love to stay on daylight savings, but it ain’t gonna happen.
Every few years it seems it picks up political steam, then, much like vapor, you don’t hear another word.
Nope, we’ll just keep falling back. Dark at 4:30 pm wondering why depression and suicide rates skyrocket this time of year.
Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:38 pm
Yes end Daylight savings time, should’ve been done decades ago.
Comment by Mason born Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:39 pm
The general public really isn’t forced to change their clocks. I stopped changing mine years ago. Another benefit of remote working. Much of our schedule is based around UTC already. It’s just so much of an easier way to manage time for widely-dispersed teams. I started using in the rest of my day too.
After a few years of using UTC, the futility of changing my own clocks became painfully obvious.
Now, it’s nothing more than a weekend twice a year where the general population has a collective hallucination that they can control time, but at the same time are angry about doing it. The solution is obvious, but people don’t like change even when it means changing something they don’t like doing.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:45 pm
If we go to all Daylight Savings, sunrise in December and January would be after 8-8:30 AM, with sunset around 5:15 PM.
If we go to all Standard Time, sunrise would be around 4 AM in June, with sunset around 7:45. If you tee off at 4 PM, you’d be lucky to get in 18.
Keep the status quo.
Comment by Bogey Golfer Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:47 pm
I feel about daylight savings time the same as I feel about using offensive school mascots, it helps no one and hurts others. Get rid of it.
Comment by Lurker Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 1:54 pm
That bill to stop Gotion tax credits is going nowhere, pure virtue signaling to people who really don’t care about national security, based on their strong support of the former president.
Comment by Grandson of Man Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 2:26 pm
The problem is if IL does away with DST, it creates new headaches because we’d be an island surrounded by other states that follow DST. (As of this posting Arizona is TWO hours earlier than Illinois, because they don’t follow DST. We’d be in the same mess with Indiana (both in Central and Eastern Time zones).
On a related note, this whole thing should have been ended by the Feds decades ago, and a push should be made in Congress to do so. This plainly affects interstate commerce, and why states were ever allowed to chose their adherence to DST is a mystery when the whole purpose of time zones was uniformity (the railroads had nightmares telling time for train schedules, as every locality might have it’s “own time.”
Comment by thisjustinagain Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 2:29 pm
I like the time change the way it is. Doing so helps balance available daylight in the mornings and evenings, and the time change is not that hard.
Comment by Checkers Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 2:30 pm
If we’re going to change DST it really needs to be done at the National level. Otherwise it will lead to confusion on State borders and for travelers. I see it enough in border towns on the line matching to the adjacent large city. And then there are certain cities and States that don’t change at all. I’ve coped with it, but a National standard would be my choice.
Comment by RNUG Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 3:19 pm
The whole time thing is an issue for Illinois because we are on the east side of our time zone. The folks on the west side watch the sun rise and set almost an hour later than we do.
Perhaps we should go back to the old way of setting time hyperlocally. Noon is when the sun is highest in the sky. We could have thousands of time zones; I blame the railroads stopping this.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 3:32 pm
The only thing worse for me about being represented in Congress by Rep. LaHood?
Being redistricted into to Rep. Miller’s district.
Comment by H-W Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 3:36 pm
“No. Summer sunrise before 4 AM? What a waste of sunlight.”
DST in winter would mean children waiting for school buses or walking to school in the dark on more days than they do now. For me that’s a more important safety issue than losing an hour of daylight on summer evenings.
And kudos to TheInvisibleMan, time is relative after all.
Comment by Steve Polite Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 3:43 pm
I feel like we’ve been stuck in the same arguments regarding time changes as have been well expressed here in the comments. I think removing the changes and choosing either Standard or DST both are imperfect solutions. We COULD choose one and live with the consequences. I think there may be other options. For example, maybe we compromise and change our clocks one more time in the spring or fall, but only by half an hour instead of a full one, and never touch them again. I’m not sure anyone would be happy with that. I think the bigger issue is that we have made a society where every day is split up into 3 8-hour blocks as sleep time, work/school time, and free time. Since we are stuck with the approximately 24 hour day, maybe we need a new balance in our daily lives? I’ve been under the impression that we as a people work too much, sleep too little, and don’t get free time to really further develop ourselves, then we can get used to clocks that work on the actual 23 hours and 56 minutes and still use our calendars. I also realize that change is way bigger than what is being proposed already so it’s not likely to happen - I’m just a dreamer.
Comment by Blitz Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 4:08 pm
the only opinion I would consult on the turkey bill is that of Dale Bowman, the amazing outdoors writer of the Sun Times. he has his pulse on what is right in hunting. He’s also a great writer, fond of quips about the Sox, and wonderful about plants and foraging.
Comment by Amalia Friday, Nov 3, 23 @ 4:21 pm
Some really complex and painful issues here. Benton’s union tax break bill is atrocious, and I’m a Democrat who supports unions. And we need to stop peacemealing property tax breaks and come up with a system that flat out works better like oh I don’t not funding our local schools on property taxes. And the Republican Party’s insistence on voting against jobs and the best interest of what they say they’re in favor of is truly amazing.
But yes. Please. Let’s argue about the time change more.
Comment by NotYourGramma Monday, Nov 6, 23 @ 6:12 pm