(Listen to author Jeff Ignatius discuss the Fair Tax on "Midwest Week" with WVIK's Herb Trix.)

How would you like a cut in your income taxes while protecting funding for education and public safety?

Or how would you like the Illinois General Assembly to stick it to you by making permanent the income-tax increase of 2011 that is supposed to (mostly) expire next year?

Lucky you: In a bizarre set of circumstances, a "Fair Tax" proposal would give you both! Ninety-four percent of Illinois taxpayers would see their income taxes drop in 2015, while lawmakers wouldn't have to make the tough budgetary choices they promised to. Win-win!

Sound confusing? It is. Sound impossible? It isn't.

Bear with me, and I'll explain how the legislature - specifically Democrats faced with two highly unattractive options in an election year - devised a "third way" that's not really a third way at all. It's merely a variation on one of those highly unattractive options, but it's been cleverly packaged on the assumption that voters have short memories.

This gambit is technically still in play, but on Tuesday it looked nearly certain that it lacked the legislative votes to move forward to a November referendum. If it has indeed died for 2014, let this be a cautionary tale about the perils of broken pledges - and attempts at marketing them as something positive.

And if the plan finds new life in the next few days, it's essential that lawmakers and voters understand what it really is.

A poll taken for Rasmussen Reports earlier this month found that Governor Pat Quinn's unfavorable rating was 55 percent.

That's pretty darned bad, and perhaps the worst among the nation's governors. But Quinn has nothing on Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

A new Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll found Madigan's unfavorable rating to be an almost mind-boggling 65 percent.

Two worries are obviously driving driving much of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's personal legislative agenda this year: low Democratic turnout in an off-year election for an unpopular governor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner's millions in campaign spending.

"If you're an African American on the South Side, what motivates you to vote for [Governor] Pat Quinn when you wake up election morning?" was the blunt assessment of one longtime Madigan associate last week.

For example, Madigan signaled last week that despite his past reluctance to raise the minimum wage and his longtime alliance with the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (which is leading the charge against it), he's not opposed. Calling the idea a matter of "fairness" and "equity," Madigan told reporters last week: "I think you'll find the opposition to raising the minimum wage comes from people that have done pretty well in America, and for some strange reason they don't want others in America to participate in prosperity."

Asked if he was referring to Rauner, Madigan asked: "Who?"

It didn't take long for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner to drop the word "unions" from his vocabulary.

After bashing public-employee-union leaders for months as corrupt bosses who buy votes to control Springfield, Rauner and his campaign have assiduously avoided the use of the U word since his victory last Tuesday. Instead, he's switched to a line about how "our government is run by lobbyists, for special interests, and the career politicians in both parties let it happen."

Rauner's campaign manager said on primary night that his boss is "pro-union." Rauner himself insisted last week that he's not anti-union and never has been.

The candidate's record clearly shows otherwise, however. Rauner kicked off his campaign with a widely published op-ed in which he called for legislation to allow individual counties to approve their own "right to work" laws. Rauner has also repeatedly demanded that Illinois follow the lead of states such as Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, all of which have all passed anti-union laws.