About Cook GOP
Chairman
Leadership
City Of Chicago
Cook County
9/2/2010
Stroger Just Doesn't Care Anymore
8/31/2010
Berrios Under the Microscope
8/31/2010
GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
09/08/2010
Reception for Senator Bill Brady
09/12/2010
Carl Segvich for Commissioner Fundraiser
09/12/2010
Elk Grove Township GOP Family Picnic
Meet Roger Keats
Had Enough of Pat Quinn?
Pat Quinn's Christmas in July
Time for reality to intervene in state budget mess
3/10/2010 9:09:17 AM
March 10, 2010
By Fran Eaton
M aybe former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife aren't so crazy. They've been able to tap into reality shows to bring in much-needed personal income and stir public sympathy. We should consider the same idea for the General Assembly.
If cameras and producers rolled into the state Capitol and set up an intervention reality series, we'd have a huge hit. Tax-and-spenders would be faced with the traumatic reality that unemployed workers can't pay higher income taxes, that middle-class families can't work any additional hours to make up the revenue loss and that they simply can't get tax blood out of dried-up turnips.
It's past time to intervene and stop the tax-and-spend addicts at the state Capitol.
No one in their right mind would want to be in Gov. Pat Quinn's shoes today. At noon, he is scheduled to stand before a joint session of the Illinois General Assembly and tell us all that the state's finances are in trouble. It won't be the first time he's said it, but this time he'll really mean it. Or at least he'll make us think he means it.
Before the nation hit tough economic times, Illinois spent as much money as it brought in, plus more. Confident the good times would continue to roll, our lawmakers expanded state programs and entitlements, increased indebtedness and built up state employee ranks.
All the while, they chose to spend money they didn't have in hand while refusing to set aside funds for promised state worker pensions. As long as whining interest groups got what they wanted in any particular fiscal year, lawmakers set aside the inevitable debts to be dealt with at a later date.
Gradually, bills began piling up. Doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, drug stores all began waiting 60 days, then 90 days or more, for Illinois to reimburse them for providing mandated services to state-dependent customers.
Schools began waiting longer, too. The same for municipalities. Slowly but surely, debts increased, bills mounted and revenue sharply decreased with tough economic times.
What family hasn't gone through tough economic times? What's the first thing we do when we face layoffs, health problems or a financial setback? We first cut the luxury items, the nonessentials, and then we stop setting aside savings. We focus on surviving, and we put off thinking about the future. Then, if those tough times continue, we dip into savings, even begin to sell off any assets and look for ways to make ends meet to ride out the wave.
That's how families make it. They adjust and learn from the experience to live another day.
Why don't our lawmakers get it?
Today, Quinn will suggest cuts that will cause consternation among some and relief among others.
Mayors are preparing for Quinn to announce a 3 percent cut in state funding. From Cairo to Rockford, local governments will be forced to choose between cutting services, laying off employees or raising local tax revenues.
Schools, which already are owed millions of unpaid state reimbursements, will need to cut back their budgets - forcing them to lay off teachers, increase class sizes, delay building repairs and eliminate pay increases.
Most interesting will be to see how the governor handles the ever-increasing service worker unions' demands - especially since the two largest state worker unions have endorsed him in the fall.
One Chicago-based nonprofit group proposed drastic changes for Quinn's highly favored AFSCME and SEIU members, while they inundate the state Capitol by the busloads, demanding pay increases.
"Illinois must raise the retirement age for state workers, reduce pension accruals and automatic cost-of-living increases, and require retirees to pay a share of their health care costs," the Civic Committee said. "The reforms are similar to measures already adopted by the private sector companies that employ most Illinois taxpayers."
According to an analysis by the independent Pew Center on the States, Illinois ranks dead last in terms of its pension funding, with more than $136 billion owed by its pension and retiree health care systems. The Civic Committee supports reforms that would apply to current employees as well as future hires.
Only such reforms will have an immediate and positive impact on the state budget. Reforming benefits for current employees going forward could save $3 billion or more annually, the committee said.
And while House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton hold overwhelming Democratic majorities, they point and scoff at "do-nothing" Republicans they say offer no solutions. Perhaps a little more truthful would be that the ideas Republicans offer are simply ones that Madigan, Cullerton and Quinn don't want to consider.
The Illinois Policy Institute recommended belt-tightening measures and bigger-picture reforms that could change Illinois' financial situation. In conjunction with House Minority Leader Tom Cross, IPI suggested easy-to-implement ideas such as the governor appointing members to the Sunshine Commission he formed by executive order last year. The commission's job would be to consolidate or eliminate duplicative or ineffective state programs. So far, no Sunshine Commission.
IPI also recommended that the Legislature limit spending growth to the rate of the state's population increase and then review Illinois' ever-growing regulations that discourage businesses from coming to Illinois. They suggested giving the public seven days to review the budget online before it is voted upon in the House and Senate, and requiring a three-fifths vote to raise taxes.
Fact is, there's lots of proposed ideas to help Quinn. The problem is those suggestions will force our lawmakers to face reality, admit we have a problem and determine whether they want to fix the problem and endure the discomfort that remedy will bring, or if they would rather continue in the miserable, unsustainable fix into which they've led us.
Unpaid bills, unpaid pensions, unpaid reimbursements, unpaid debts simply cannot be delayed for another decade for our kids to pay. It's time for an intervention in the state Capitol and the Governor's Mansion.
The first step of the needed 12 should be taken today.
