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Chicago Tribune: Madigan, Cullerton summon lawmakers back to Capitol next week
Illinois lawmakers will return to Springfield on Wednesday, nearly a month since they departed the Capitol after ending the spring session without agreement on a budget for state government.
Democratic Senate President John Cullerton informed his members on Thursday that they’d been summoned back to the statehouse, shortly after Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner made comments suggesting Democrats were prepared to send him a short-term spending plan for state agencies that would be tied to helping Chicago Public Schools dig out of its financial hole.
Rauner said it’s “not fair” for suburban and Downstate taxpayers to foot the bill for CPS’ financial problems. Asked if he would sign a stopgap funding bill that included a CPS bailout, Rauner replied, “absolutely no.”
Chicago Tribune: Call it 'the Cullerton treatment.' Why don't more Illinois voters push back?
When Senate President John Cullerton agreed to speak Monday night with parents at a school in his Chicago district, he easily could anticipate a pleasant evening of nodding heads and polite applause. He would be meeting with a Democratic-leaning audience of engaged Chicago Public Schools parents who are frustrated by education budget cuts, a state budget impasse — and no guarantee that their children’s classrooms will reopen in several weeks.
Instead, the parents schooled Cullerton the way voters throughout Illinois should be pressing lawmakers who can’t bring themselves to pass a balanced state budget. That is, a full-year budget, not a half-year stopgap to spare incumbents of both parties difficult votes until they stand for re-election Nov. 8.
Cullerton, recall, was among the Democrats who voted for House Speaker Michael Madigan‘s proposal for a fiscal 2017 budget based on $39 billion in spending but only $32 billion in revenue.
Crain's: Is bankruptcy such an awful idea for Chicago?
Few words get the attention of politicians, bankers, investors and employees like bankruptcy does.
Once unthinkable, the idea of Chicago filing for bankruptcy is becoming less far-fetched as the city stares down the barrel of $25 billion in pension obligations that it can’t meet. The topic sparked one of the more animated debates at Crain’s Future of Chicago conference last week.
Bankruptcy, or the threat of it, may be the only way to bring politicians, unions and investors to the table to do what needs to be done to right the ship for the next generation, three panelists argued as part of a discussion on budget issues at the city and state level.
The Southern: How do you define Southern Illinois?
The words “Southern Illinois” appear in our newspaper dozens of times every week. And we have made a stylistic decision to capitalize the “S” in Southern, even though it is not by legal definition its own state or territory.
That longstanding practice is a nod to the fact that people consider this region distinct from other parts of the state.
Part of that has to do with geography in a state that measures about 390 miles from the Land of Lincoln’s feet around Cairo to the tip of his top hat at the Wisconsin border. But its also about — more so about — cultural and economic distinctions. That’s a concept difficult to draw hard boundaries around.
WSIL: Who gets the blame for the budget stalemate?
For the third time in just a few short weeks, lawmakers canceled a planned legislative session in Springfield.
They claim working groups will use that time to try and agree on a stopgap state budget.
The move has some people questioning what, if any, progress they’ve made. Data collected by the Southern Illinois University’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute shows the percentage of people in Illinois who see the state going in the wrong direction increased by 20 percent in the last year.
PJStar: llinois, where good government came to die
Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger was in Peoria Tuesday to alert the locals that state government has little more than a week left to begin repairing the “unacceptable” and “unnecessary” damage of the “self-inflicted traumas” it has unleashed, to the degree that is still possible.
That would include $9 billion in unpaid bills, for starters, which comes to more than a quarter of the state’s annual revenue. It would include imperiling the opening of schools in a couple of months. It would include road construction projects coming to a halt on July 1, if and when the 2017 fiscal year begins without a budget. It would include driving social service agencies out of business. It would include one of the most hostile economic environments in America, leading to citizens and employers leaving the state in perhaps unprecedented numbers. It would include Illinois’ well-deserved reputation as the most incompetently run state government in the nation. And yes, it would include legislators having to wait months for their paychecks, giving some a taste of what it’s like to beg mercy from their own creditors … which come to think of it, is not such a bad thing, so strike that last sentence.
We could go on and on, of course, but it would be pointless, as we’ve concluded from experience that there is no amount of shame that can be heaped upon those who occupy seats at the Capitol that would compel them to the cause of good government. Illinois is where good government came to die.
News-Sun: County road projects on list of IDOT work zones being shut down by budget stalemate
The first step in halting transportation projects across Illinois because of the state budget impasse started Wednesday when contractors were notified to secure construction zones by June 30 for a possible long-term shutdown, according to transportation officials.
“We have started to inform our industry partners that all of our projects in both construction and engineering phases will be shutting down starting June 30 due to the majority party in the legislature’s failure to pass a balanced budget,” the Illinois Department of Transportation said in a statement. “The conversation about how individual projects will wind down is continuing.”
IDOT officials said they have identified projects totaling $665.5 million underway in Cook, DuPage, Will, McHenry, Kane and Lake counties. The total includes $495.7 million in state projects and $169.7 million in local projects.