By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD– The second of three gubernatorial debates touched upon the familiar themes.

On ABC in Chicago, JB Pritzker and Gov Rauner discussed Pritzker’s failure to disclose any rates or brackets for his graduated income tax proposal.

“The middle class and those striving to get there have not gotten a break ever in this state. This is the unfair tax system that Bruce Rauner is defending. Those rates – the income levels and the break points -will be negotiated with the legislature, and with Republicans
at the table.

Rauner called the graduated tax – used in a majority of states and by the IRS – “a green light to raise taxes on everyone. The reason Mr. Pritzker doesn’t want to answer the question is because he knows it;s going to crush the middle class, and he doesn’t want to
admit it before the election.”

“All the taxes that were assessed on that property were paid,” Pritzker said about the toilet issue, having now said he repaid the $330,000 in Cook County tax breaks. “This is how Gov. Rauner distracts from his own record. He took 22 property tax reassessments,”
Pritzker added, with Rauner interjecting, “That’s not true.”

Rauner tried to get to the heart of Pritzker’s inner workings and motivations: “I am being challenged by an individual who inherited billions, who never had a real job in his life, who has cheated the tax system, who may well come under criminal investigation, who
is trying to buy the governorship to be something for the first time in his life, because if he weren’t a trust fund baby, he’d be nothin’.

Uninvited: third party candidates Kash Jackson and State Sen. Sam McCann. The third debate is a week from tonight in Quincy.

The election is Nov. 6.