At a time when Mayor Brandon Johnson has been beating the drum for progressive revenue, the Illinois General Assembly chose the most regressive tax of all to help fund mass transit — a 0.25 percent increase in the already high sales tax in Chicago and the suburban and collar county region served by the Regional Transit Authority.

The legislation, approved largely along party lines, also requires hospitals, day care centers and higher education institutions to create policies delineating how they would handle immigration agents inside their facilities.

State Sen. Steve McClure said record numbers of inmates and guards are being attacked in prison, a record number of weapons are being sneaked in, and a record number of drugs are being found in prison. “So why is there a record number of people being released for good behavior?” McClure asked.

On the Senate floor at about 3 a.m., state Sen. Linda Holmes said her bill, the “Terminally Ill Patients Act,” would let adults with less than six months to live request a prescription to self-end their suffering.

Though instances of ICE detentions in Illinois have been centered on Chicago since President Donald Trump began “Operation Midway Blitz” in September, Gov. JB Pritzker said this week that there has been an uptick recently in ICE activity in central and southern Illinois.

He said, in part, “This bill will build upon the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, positioning Illinois to keep growing our clean energy economy and creating good-paying jobs in communities across the state.”

State Rep. Ryan Spain said the veto session was bad for taxpayers: “It’s been an expensive couple days for taxpayers here with initiatives to increase insurance rates, energy prices, and now a massive sales tax increase throughout the RTA, including an increase on groceries for communities that did not reinstate their own grocery tax after we eliminated it.”

Instead of creating new statewide taxes, lawmakers chose to move around money that already comes into the state. The plan uses about $860 million from the state’s motor fuel sales tax, $200 million in interest from the state road fund, and allows the Regional Transit Authority to raise its local sales tax by 0.25 percentage points in the Chicago area.

The Make My Move talent attraction program, now in its second round, is targeting professionals in engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, legal, accounting and education with a $9,000 incentive, according to a community announcement.

With $15,804 in pension debt per person, Illinois has the highest unfunded pension liabilities per capita, according to the Reason Foundation report.

State Sen. Jason Plummer, R-Edwardsville, said the bill is “Example 1A” of everything that is wrong with how the state of Illinois functions.

The plan goes to the governor’s desk without any of the controversial statewide taxes on package deliveries, streaming or event tickets that were part of previous bills. Instead, the measure would be fueled by revenue sources that currently feed the state’s Road Fund and an increased sales tax targeted to the Chicago area.

Illinois legislators approved an energy bill that includes billions in battery storage in hopes of heading off future electricity increases.

The group allegedly “banged aggressively” on the government vehicle and pushed against it to impede its movement. They etched the message “PIG” into the body of the car and broke both a mirror and a windshield wiper, the indictment says.