Madigan, Cullerton and the absurdity of Springfield’s budget blame game
Responsibility for Illinois’ sorry state of affairs falls at the feet of House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and their combined 80 years in state government.
The Illinois General Assembly has no bigger job than passing a balanced budget every year.
But Democratic majorities passed a budget that legislative leaders openly acknowledged contains a nearly $4 billion deficit. Then they left Springfield.
This is an abdication of their duty – the state constitution requires a balanced budget. Their actions leave Gov. Bruce Rauner with little choice but to plan major cuts.
On Tuesday, he announced $400 million in reductions in the absence of a budget agreement with the General Assembly. His measures include:
- Immediate suspension of all future incentive offers to businesses, including Economic Development for a Growing Economy tax credits.
- Removal of the Illiana Expressway from the state’s current multiyear plan
- Suspension of the state’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
- Identification of one or two juvenile correctional facilities for closure
- Beginning the process of closing the Hardin County Work Camp, which means about 180 inmates will be moved and about 60 employees affected
- Freezing of all vehicle purchases for the state police
- Filing of emergency rules to enact means testing for Department on Aging’s Community Care Program
- No awarding of grants for the Department of Natural Resource’s Open Space Land Acquisition Development program in fiscal year 2016
- Closing of five state museums to visitors
These actions received immediate criticism.
“The governor has declared all-out war on the citizens of the state of Illinois because he’s peeved with the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate,” state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s a path that’s carefully chosen to strike at the values and principals of what the majority of the members of the Legislature believe in.”
None of Lang’s anger was directed at House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton or the politicians they control. These men have a combined 80 years in the General Assembly. Madigan himself has controlled the House of Representatives for all but two years since the early 1980s.
Decade after decade, the two Chicago Democrats have let Illinois’ unfunded pension liability grow. Now it’s at $111 billion, making Illinois home to the nation’s worst pension crisis. Pensions are crowding out funding for everything else in the budget – schools, roads, law enforcement and programs for the poor and disadvantaged.
During this time, Madigan and Cullerton could have cut wasteful spending, stopped the endless expansion of pension benefits and enacted pro-growth measures, such as real workers’ compensation reform.
They passed on those opportunities. Instead, they raised the state income tax four years ago. It did nothing to help Illinois. Pension liabilities grew. More people and businesses left for pro-growth states. Spending grew, of course.
Now, Madigan and Cullerton again want more money from taxpayers – as usual, without any reforms of state government. Illinois can’t afford to continue down this path.
Yet Madigan and company still harp about “Rauner’s cuts.”
To be sure, Lang is right about “an all-out war on citizens.” But he’s wrong about who is waging that war. It’s not Illinois’ new governor. It’s the politicians who have been ruling Illinois for decades.