Comptroller Leslie Munger announced last week that Illinois would not be able to make its required $560 million contribution to the pension system in November. Illinois is running out of money.
Pity poor Squeezy the Pension Python.
Squeezy, you'll recall, was an orange cartoon snake that Gov. Pat Quinn's administration hatched as a marketing mascot to highlight the state's pension crisis. Squeezy would be devastated by Munger's news that the state has to delay contributions to its pension funds. In fact, three years after Squeezy's debut, Illinois still has its pension crisis, and is in the fourth month of a fiscal year with no budget.
But Munger can't feed Squeezy. What do his agitated snake-eyes see?
Pension debt rising rather than falling? Check. Cuts to spending on other needs? Check. Feuding elected officials? Check.
The standoff between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats in the legislature has been framed as political warfare driven by philosophical differences.
It's more than that. It's about the future of Illinois — its government but also its torpid, jobs-starved economy. It's about House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton protecting the status quo that they helped create. And it's about a freshman governor trying to fix that government, but also attract jobs. During 12 years that Democrats controlled the legislative and executive branches, Illinois first borrowed $10 billion through a bond sale — the largest in state history — to prop up the pension funds and other spending. It didn't solve anything. A couple of years later, Springfield started skipping full payments into the funds so lawmakers could spend the money elsewhere. Our Democrat-controlled state government then borrowed again in 2010 and 2011 to make pension contributions.
During that one-party rule, the unfunded liability of the pension funds grew from about $43 billion to more than $100 billion. And during the last four years of exclusively Democratic control, the state took in an additional $30 billion-plus from an income tax hike. The Democrats' oligarchy still couldn't pay their bills.
You can't blame that kind of mismanagement on a recession that ended in June 2009, though the Dems have tried like heck.
Madigan and Cullerton — holding supermajorities in both chambers — insist on running government the way they've fortified it: as their fiefdom, not serving the people. They didn't flinch when they intentionally passed an unbalanced budget in May for the current fiscal year and went home. Same as they did in 2014, forcing cuts and crisis halfway through the last fiscal year.
"I was surprised and disappointed," Preckwinkle said.So if you think the Democrats are sincere about fixing their budget mess, think again. And catch this: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told us Wednesday that the county is waiting on $70 million from the state. When Preckwinkle talked to Madigan about the money this summer, he told her to not count on a budget resolution until 2016 ... when the state runs out of money.
Madigan's spokesman didn't get back to us to clarify. But Madigan's plan is clear: Wait it out, refuse to budge, blame Rauner.
Who gets hurt by these political games?
Many needy citizens who have lost support or fear that they will. Unconscionable.
Who else gets hurt? Millions of Illinoisans who don't ask much of state government, who pay their taxes, and who wish Illinois could again be a prosperous state where children could grow up and find good jobs. Instead those Illinoisans are stuck with a state government that insulates costly labor protections, that drives away the businesses it has, and that scares off prospective employers to Texas, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin ...
Rauner has tried to compromise. He put the option of new taxes on the table to help balance the budget. He is asking for common-sense reforms, including giving voters a greater voice in their government — the chance to vote for term limits and redistricting reform — and labor-rule changes that would attract employers.
But Madigan and Cullerton refuse to meet him halfway. On anything.
In September we urged Rauner to set a deadline for a budget deal. Enough with the nonsense. Declare that after a certain date, the offer of higher taxes vanishes: "If there's no deal by a date certain — how about Nov. 1? — then set the rest of your agenda aside for another day, another year. But make it clear to Democrats that their failure to reach a deal with you by that date locks in how much money Illinois will have to spend."
Nov. 1 is two weeks from Sunday.
Taking taxes off the table would disappoint those who think state government is well-run and can't economize.
But remember which leaders drove Illinois into this ditch. And remember who's waving off the tow truck: Nope, no problem around here but a governor who won't surrender to us and the miserable status quo.
www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-rauner-madigan-cullerton-budget-illinois-taxes-edit-1018-jm-20151016-story.html
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