CHICAGO (CBS) ―

You've seen the ads; the top two Democrats in the governor's race are already on the air and on the attack, four months ahead of their showdown in the February primary. But are those ads accurate? CBS 2 Politcal Editor Mike Flannery performed a fact check.

Gov. Pat Quinn and Democratic challenger and State Comptroller Dan Hynes both have said that the state is so deeply in debt, we have to raise taxes. Their campaign ads have been battling over how to do it, but neither side has been telling the whole truth.

We asked some experts to do that, including Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. He said he likes Hynes' proposal to raise the income tax only of Illinoisans making over $200,000 a year.

However, that would require amending the Illinois Constitution and that would take years, even if the all huge political obstacles could be overcome.

Illinois, though, can't pay its bills right now.

"The bad news is it takes an awful long time to get a constitutional amendment passed," Martire said.

"Not the whole truth," is Martire's verdict on the Hynes commercial.

It's also his verdict on a Quinn ad that says "Hold on, Dan. Truth is, Gov. Quinn proposed tax cuts for families earning less than $60,000 a year."

That ad was a response to a Hynes ad that Quinn's tax plan would raise income taxes for everyone in Illinois. But Quinn's response is not the whole truth either.

What the governor's ad didn't say is that his tax proposal died in Springfield. Quinn then reluctantly agreed to go along with a proposed 67 percent increase in the income tax rate, a plan approved by the State Senate, though not the House. That plan would also have cut some other taxes.

Martire said he faults Quinn for not raising enough new revenue to pay the bills and for lacking Hynes's focus on the long term.

"Neither of these proposals right now is up to snuff at all. Neither of the things that they say they want to do will work in the short term," Martire said.

A man who once worked for a Republican administration said the Democrats are ignoring the state's biggest financial problem of all.

Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said, "You still need to identify where your cuts are going to take place."

But you won't see either candidate do that in a campaign ad. "That's because it's bad news that you have to deliver," Msall said. Any major budget cuts would mean layoffs.

The half-dozen Republicans running for governor have been having a very different debate. Some GOP contenders claim Illinois can cut its way to a balanced budget, though they scatter like rabbits when pressed to explain how they'd cut $5 billion, which is about the current size of the state's stack of unpaid bills.

 

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)