The stopgap budget passed by the General Assembly provides six months worth of funding for government services such as road construction, as well as a full K-12 education budget for the 2016-2017 school year, property-tax-raising authority for Chicago, and more state funding of pensions for Chicago Public Schools teachers.

Until CPS passes necessary spending and pension reforms, giving any additional money to the system will only reward officials’ mismanagement and reckless behavior.

The pension problem was created and has been fueled by weak politicians – men and women who decided their next elections were more important than the next generation.

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s insistence that Chicago Public Schools receive more than its fair share of state education funding is putting any stopgap budget deal at risk.

A representative from the state-worker union called for collective action from governments of prison towns to force Gov. Bruce Rauner’s hand in the budget debate, which could expose thousands of incarcerated Illinoisans to squalid, dangerous conditions.

If Springfield politicians do not pass a budget by June 30, the state will be forced to stop payments to winning lottery ticket holders, Illinois’ comptroller has warned.

Madigan’s record $40 billion spending proposal and its $7 billion deficit revealed he was never serious about reaching a budget deal with Rauner. Instead it was nothing more than an attempt to create a deeper fiscal crisis, force additional tax hikes and create a bailout for the city of Chicago. As long as Madigan and other lawmakers keep prioritizing politics over people, Illinois will continue its downward spiral.

Munger said that if raising taxes were the only answer to the budget crisis, lawmakers would have to increase the income tax from its current 3.75 percent to 8 percent.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is again mailing notices of vehicle-emissions-testing requirements to vehicle owners, and effective June 1, the Illinois secretary of state has resumed requiring certain drivers to pass emissions tests prior to renewing their license plates. Drivers scrambling to comply by the secretary of state’s June 1 effective date caused headline-making traffic jams throughout Chicago and its suburbs.

For years, Illinois lawmakers have prioritized government-worker pay and benefits over social services. Between 2000 and 2015, contributions to Illinois state-worker pension funds shot up 586 percent, while state payments for human services increased by only 10 percent.