All in all it was an incredible spring. Gov. James R. Thompson asked for $1.1 billion in new state taxes. Illinois lawmakers were incredulous. Thompson was not credible. He got nothing. Schools saw budget cuts. And welfare recipients will go another year without a grant increase.

It was not that there was no climate for state tax increases. Neighboring Indiana raised its income tax this year, a fact pointed out by Thompson several times as he tried to push his package. Florida adopted a service tax broader than the one Thompson failed to sell. Missouri voters approved a hike in their gasoline taxes. In the last 12 months seven states raised their sales taxes; 18 hiked gasoline taxes (Nebraska reduced its gas tax); and 12 boosted cigarette taxes. In Illinois no taxes were increased.

What happened? ''Look at it for my own case," said Sen. Aldo A. DeAngelis (R-40, Olympia Fields), who offered his view of Thompson's original package. "The first $300 million goes to pay old debt. The next $300 million to public health providers. The next $400 million to education, and believe it or not my districts get less. Then $100 million to local government, $100 million for refunds. Now you've got DeAngelis yawning."

There was plenty of yawning around the Capitol. There was lots of waiting. Momentum built briefly in late June but quickly fizzled and died. James D. Nowlan, a political scientist, former lawmaker and head of Thompson's transition team (after bowing out as an early independent gubernatorial candidate), said that tax increases should be hard to sell to lawmakers like DeAngelis. But he said other states have been willing to hike taxes "to do what's necessary."

Absent in Illinois this year was an "acknowledgement" of the need for more money, Nowlan said. "There was acknowledgement in 1968-1969 and in 1983, but not in this past legislative session. I think the acknowledgement will grow gradually," he added. As a lawmaker in 1969 Nowlan viewed the birth of the Illinois income tax. He said the tax's adoption followed years of growing recognition that Illinois needed a new revenue source. Then in 1983 after the state had undergone two years of state budget restraint and Illinois was in the throes of a recession, legislators approved a much modified Thompson tax increase plan including a temporary hike in the income tax and permanent increases in sales and gasoline taxes.

This year, Nowlan said, Thompson lacked credibility: His proposal followed a campaign during which discussion of tax hikes was absent. Others say he did the same thing four years ago. Nowlan suggested, "They [lawmakers] are being strongly resistant, because they feel the governor got a pass on taxes during his campaign, and now the governor wants to hang a tax albatross around their neck.'' Nor, Nowlan said, did the administration convince average citizens that more revenue from higher taxes would accomplish improvements in schools, reform of the welfare system, etc.

Thompson's failure to make the case during the election weighed heavily in many lawmakers' minds. Thompson had run for governor in November and downplayed the need for tax hikes. Comptroller Roland W. Burris had said before and after the election that taxes needed to be increased or spending cut. Before the election Robert L. Mandeville, Thompson's budget director, had denied that the state was in trouble and had contended that the general revenue funds were only experiencing cash flow problems because revenue from a new tax on long-distance phone messages remained in a protest fund while the tax was under challenge in court. "I don't think we're talking crisis yet," Mandeville had said at a post-election briefing called to respond to a Burris attack. (Ironically, Burris and Mandeville reversed roles this summer after the General Assembly adopted a no-tax budget that called for no money in the the general funds at year's end, June 30, 1988, and payment only of interest on the $100 million borrowed in February. Burris embraced the legislative budget as a responsible plan. Mandeville rejected it; he said that repayment of the $100 million and restoration of the $200 million end-of-year balance were essential and nonnegotiable.)

Four months after the 1986 election Thompson proposed an individual income tax increase, a sales tax on services, gasoline tax hikes and higher license plate fees that would yield Illinois $1.1 billion in fiscal 1988. Many recalled that Thompson had done nearly the same thing in 1982-1983. After this year's tax hike fracas ended, the governor observed, "I'm not going to duck or run or hide to the extent that I failed to analyze the full fiscal needs of this state during the campaign. . . .I'll take my lumps." He took them, all spring. Aides say that Thompson did not make the decision to hike taxes until January, and that he did so only after reviewing the effects of a no-tax budget on the next three years of state spending.

Lawmakers were unconvinced. "I think he had a real credibility problem. I'm not sure he ever overcame that," said Sen. Dawn Clark Netsch (D-4, Chicago). Rep. James F. Keane (D-28, Chicago) was more succinct: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."Nowlan's second point, that the voters were unconvinced of the need for a tax increase, also complicated Thompson's sales job. Lawmakers claimed to have found little support at home for Thompson's tax hike package. Rep. Tom Ryder (R-97, Jerseyville) chaired the House Republican Policy Committee studying the tax increase and said as the legislature headed into its final stretch that its fate hung on what lawmakers heard from constituents. What he heard was strong opposition to increasing the gas tax, general opposition to raising the income tax and practically no support for any tax hike. Some of his colleagues heard even stronger anti-tax sentiment, Ryder said.

Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-26, Chicago) bolstered Nowlan's argument about credibility. She said that in 1983 the state had been through difficult recessionary times. The budget cuts that Thompson threatened this year had already been enacted four years ago. "The realities were different," she said. And four years ago there was more support from special interests: "In 1983 constituent groups organized early and enthusiastically — teachers, state workers, social service providers. It set the tone of the legislative session and did not happen until late in the game this year." Deputy Gov. James Reilly, too, saw less special interest effort than four years ago. ''Maybe it's just human nature that you get angrier about cuts than you get enthused about increases," he said.

As a result the governor was the solitary figure pushing a tax hike. "Thompson was the only one selling the tax increase this time, and he was about the worst one to do it because of his problem in 1983," said Sen. Bob Kustra (R-28, Des Plaines). Part of the problem this year was the administration's difficulty in packaging a tax increase that appealed to interest groups since the first chunk of from $400 million to $500 million had to go toward righting two years of fiscal wrongs: restoring the balance to $200 million; repaying the $100 million February loan; shortening a 60-day wait for doctors, hospitals and nursing homes who receive state reimbursements for services provided to the poor; reducing the time that corporate taxpayers wait for refunds (and the interest the state must pay them).

The remaining revenue from his tax package seemed paltry, neither arousing interest groups nor inspiring lawmakers. The 3.2 percent grant increase Thompson proposed for welfare recipients, for example, was viewed by many Democrats as inadequate. Others, like DeAngelis, yawned.

Education is another example. Robert Leininger, legislative liaison for the state Board of Education, admitted that the schools did not push hard enough. "The legislature didn't do their job. The education community didn't do theirs either," he acknowledged. Leininger said that the original Thompson budget backed by his March tax proposal spread $93 million in new general state aid money across all school districts and was too little to get schools excited. At the end of the session, when education's share was upped and the leadership of educational groups was working hard to pass tax increases, he said that support from the rank and file from school districts was weak. Local school officials felt pressure from other local groups lobbying against any tax hikes, they were reluctant to give up any of their local taxing powers as a quid pro quo for more revenue from increased taxes, and they believed schools would get more revenue even if taxes were not increased. "The feeling was very prevalent that schools would get $150 to $200 million [in new state aid] anyway," Leininger said. Into July, he said, he was getting calls from school superintendents asking what happened to the state's normal revenue growth.

Sen. Kustra termed the entire exercise proof that representative government works. "An overwhelming number of people in the state of Illinois did not believe a state income tax increase was needed or warranted,'' he said. Legislators brought that message back to their party caucuses. "In all honesty the process worked, representative government worked," Kustra said.

But he acknowledged that public resistance could have been overcome. Kustra believes a unified coalition between Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and House Speaker Michael J- Madigan (D-30, Chicago) could have pushed through an increase. He said Washington's refusal to come to Springfield helped doom any plan to increase state taxes. Kustra contrasted that inaction with what he had seen as a legislative staffer. Kustra recalled watching Mayor Richard J. Daley plead for more money for Chicago: ''I saw crocodile tears roll down his rosy red cheeks." The administration put the blame on Madigan, who maintained until the end he was unconvinced of the need for a tax hike. "The speaker didn't want it to happen," asserted Deputy Gov. Reilly. He claimed there were votes in both the House and Senate to pass a half percent income tax increase and an increase in the gasoline tax. Other observers suggested the administration could have put together a package that Madigan would have had to accept and that the fault lay with Thompson's people.

The Madigan camp said the shortcomings were the governor's. "The strategy was flawed from the start and never sparked interest," said Gary LaPaille, chief of staff for Speaker Madigan. LaPaille said he is unsure whether votes were there for a tax increase because it never came down to counting votes and exchanging lists. "Maybe if he had come in at $363 million lower, he might have given impetus to the interest groups," LaPaille said. Because of the way it was constructed, the March budget was also perceived as a self-serving promotion budget for Thompson. "It was never looked on as a savior budget," he observed.

In fact some Democrats viewed Thompson's original tax-increase budget as an attempt to finish his tenure as governor with a flourish of programs and projects. And there was a feeling among lawmakers that they, not Thompson, should control where the money went. "We've just been rolling money to the governor and he's been throwing it all over the place," said Rep. Ted E. Leverenz (D-51, Maywood).

Would Thompson have been better off proposing a budget without the new money included, as LaPaille suggested? The cuts might have gotten the attention of the school community, for instance. Reilly said not necessarily. In 1983 momentum for the effort was lost while Thompson detailed what he would do with new money, Reilly said. Art Quern, chief of staff for Thompson during the 1983 tax hike debate and now an insurance company executive and outside observer, argued that without the budget cuts and hard times of 1982 a doomsday budget could further have reduced the governor's credibility.

Thompson's credibility problems were exacerbated by the size of the increase he proposed. "He asked for so much," said Sen. Netsch. One set of theories held that Thompson asked for too much and should not have mixed such diverse taxes into one proposal. He put increases in the income tax and road fund taxes in the same package with broadening the sales tax to include services. The enormity of the tax bite stirred opposition and left lawmakers, Republican and Democratic, reluctant to embrace it. "For me, for most of my colleagues in the House, our jaws just dropped, literally," said Rep. Keane.

A related theory said that the size of the increase Thompson sought and the packaging of the higher income tax, motor fuel taxes and license fees with a new sales tax on services stirred up too much organized opposition. The business groups that mobilized early to fight the service tax were organized and ready to pounce when Thompson revised his proposal to include a corporate as well as a personal income tax increase. The loud opposition to the road taxes expanded to general anti-tax sentiment, making it even harder for those willing to push for an income tax hike.

Ryder raised another factor. He suggested that the state may be more conservative now than it was in 1983, making the case for a credible tax hike more difficult. Former staffer Quern said oratory from Washington, D.C., about tax reductions creates a climate that makes tax hikes harder to sell. Quern said the opposition to Gov. Thompson's tax plan by Comptroller Burris may have diminished the credibility of the proposal in the minds of average voters. He added that it means little to individuals that the state may have a relatively low tax burden; homeowners, especially, think their taxes are too high and don't distinguish between different types.

The failed attempt to hike taxes this year followed many of the same steps as the 1983 effort. Letters went out to schools, local governments and other interest groups asking for their support. "I need your help in convincing state legislators that new revenues must be made available for elementary and secondary education,'' Thompson wrote public school officials. Rallies were held in the Capitol. The Senate convened as a committee of the whole to take testimony on the need for the hike. Summits were held.

One of the closest observers of the 1983 tax hike compromise saw similarities in style, but differences in results. Joan Parker, author of The Illinois Tax Increase of 1983: Summit and Resolution, said the administration did the same kinds of things it had done in 1983. "For whatever reasons, the passion wasn't there this time. People seemed to be just going through the motions." Parker did sense passion June 24 when prison guards packed the galleries to urge more funding for the Department of Corrections to keep Menard prison open. It stayed open, she noted.

Organized opposition from within the governor's own party also distinguished the 1987 tax debate from that in 1983. The United Republican Fund of Illinois spear headed an effort to block the increase. ''We believe that this truly united Republican resistance was absolutely necessary not only to protect the families of Illinois, but also to protect our party from its own worst inclinations and the devastation that Republican-led tax increases would have brought our party in the 1988 elections," Steven Baer, executive director of the group, said July 1.

Reilly and others discounted the effect of the conservative Republican revolt, saying most of those involved would not have voted for a tax increase anyway. Kustra said reaction to the conservatives' scare tactics was negative among his colleagues: "They were viewed as obstreperous, nasty people who ought to be called on the carpet and then ignored." Opposition aside, Quern said that Thompson faced a more formidable task this year than in 1983, when the recession and previous cuts had bolstered the case for a tax hike. And even then the 1983 income tax increase was temporary, he noted.

''Here I think the governor was very much talking about investing in the future and building for the future. The case is harder to make. The articulation of the need is more difficult to make," Quern said.

Some said to build his credibility the governor should first have inflicted some pain. Former state Rep. Sam Vinson, a confidant of House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels, asserted after the Thompson plan died that Thompson's strategic error may have been made in February when he borrowed $100 million to ease Illinois through cash flow problems. If, Vinson said, Thompson had instead made cuts in spending, things might have gone better for the tax hike proposal.

Did anything positive come from the budget and tax debates? Ryder suggested that lawmakers confronted doomsday and found it was not as bad as they thought. Kustra hoped for a more realistic approach to tax hikes. "It's about time we get back on the campaign agendas the question of whether there should be any tax enhancement." Discussing tax increases during the 1988 campaign? That would be incredible.