By Chris Magee
There's a childish game called "chicken." where two people ride straight at one another, in a car, a bike, whatever, to see who flinches and gets out of the way first. Designed as a test of courage and bravado, it is really just a good way to get hurt.
Illinois politicians are playing chicken right now with the budget. The problems are real - there's a $7 billion deficit. Governor Pat Quinn wants to raise taxes to plug this gap, and Republican and many Democratic legislators are refusing, so Quinn is threatening to take away funding from just about every social welfare program in the state to make up the difference.
Quinn knows if he targets the popular programs, the ones most people think we need, he is likely to get some action on his proposals. You're not going to find too many people in favor of eliminating drug treatment programs and battered women shelters.
Of course, the legislators can't allow themselves to be blackmailed, so they're playing hardball. They're not going to give in to threats and pass a tax increase they don't believe in.
Caught in the middle are these social services - shelters, treatment programs, food pantries, just about every fashionable cause you can think of - and they don't care who wins the game of chicken. They just want to have the money to keep doing their jobs.
In the last few weeks The Sun has received letters from seemingly every agency within 25 miles that will be affected by these cuts. Many have run in print already and many more are scheduled for publication in coming days. Each of these letters explains the valuable work these groups do and details all the cuts that will have to be made July 1 if the legislators don't find that money.
No one wants to take away funding from these agencies, but it could very well happen despite everyone's well wishing. In this game of chicken, if no one flinches, the two sides will collide in the middle and it will all come crashing down.
Unemployment in Illinois is over 10 percent now. Some estimates say state budget cuts could result in 200,000 additional job losses in our state. Is this the way to get out of the recession? Laying off employees, putting the junkies on the street, leaving those who have lost their jobs without anywhere to turn for help?
Yes, the Republicans have a point. The state needs to try to make other cuts before taking the easy way out of a tax increase. But there isn't $7 billion worth of fat in the budget. New revenue will need to be found.
No one wants to pay more taxes, especially in an economic downturn. But sometimes something is too important not to fund. Should the governor and legislators who got us into this mess by spending money like drunken sailors be held accountable? Absolutely. But groups that had nothing to do with the problem shouldn't be the ones to pay for the mistakes.
Chicken is a stupid game. It's time for our leaders to grow up and make some adult decisions before it's too late. As I write this, there are seven days until time runs out. The time for grandstanding and scoring political points is long gone. Now is the time to get serious and solve these problems.
You might not have seen Chicago Tonight yesterday because you were working. They had legislative leaders from both parties discussing the special session and the budget gap. Carol Marin asked them what they thought of the Gov. so far. Tom Cross, unlike the democratic leaders, said that he thought that the Gov. was doing about as well as he could considering the circumstances. He said that the Gov. was listening to the republicans by setting up commissions to study and propose solutions on the issues that the republicans wanted reform. Rep. Cross didn't foreclose the tax increase and was willing to work with the Gov. since the Gov. was working with his party. The democratic legislators were still entrenched in their "game".
I recently spoke with someone in another state that overspends and caters to their political base, the unions.
If their state or the Federal govt tries to tax their way out of the self-made-problems, the private employer has a contingency plan.
Move the rest of the company, the hundreds of jobs that pay $90K+, to China and India and keep a sales office in the US.
The big spending State Governments are working to drive their companies to responsible States.
The big spending Federal Government is working to drive companies to responsible countries.
Ironically, a lot of the oil industry has moved from the US to Switzerland for lower taxes and a business friendly environment. Switzerland is anything but a third world country.
What would Switzerland offer for Microsoft's Headquarters and thousands of engineering jobs for the graduates of Swiss Universities?
Microsoft has threatened to leave the US.
CERN the birthplace of the Internet and a lot of other cool stuff is located in Switzerland.
Note: Lucent bailed out of Illinois and has moved to China.
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Could Illinois renegotiate all of their roads and construction contracts to reflect the total collapse of the construction industry and maybe get us a better deal on our roads and bridges?
Is the thinking behind any of the States programs faulty and the reason we see so much failure and inefficiency? Naw, just spend more when something doesn't work.
Does anyone including the State Government really know where the money goes that they are spending today?
I keep thinking of the community grants that the Federal Government provided to drug dealers in Chicago years ago that was the seed money that financed the birth of our national gang problem. Isolated incident or systemic bad management? Help, help who to do what?
By Anonymous on June 23, 2009 7:39 AM
Could Illinois renegotiate all of their roads and construction contracts to reflect the total collapse of the construction industry and maybe get us a better deal on our roads and bridges?
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One of the bad things about public works spending in IL is the prevailing wage act. The law says that government on all levels must make sure that contractors are paying their workers what was paid the previous year for wages on government projects. Even if the cost goes down for non-governmental projects, it can't go down for government projects. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. The unions meet with the IL Dept of Labor each year and force the Dept to set prevailing wages where the unions want it.
I think Quinn is different from Blago, but a lot of people still strongly resent Blago's term and try to punish Quinn for Blago's sins. Perhaps more importantly, about half the politicians in the state are running for governor next year, and from the perspective of their political aspirations, it's not helpful to give the sitting governor a lot of victories. If he looks effective, he will be re-elected. If everything goes to hell, he'll get blamed and the others can position themselves as the ones to come in and clean it up. Cross is one of the few who hasn't formed an exploratory committee yet (that I know of) so perhaps he'll put the state ahead of politics.
Chris,
IMHO the simplistic way out of the trap is term limits at all levels of government.
You said: "But groups that had nothing to do with the problem shouldn't be the ones to pay for the mistakes."
So, just because I'm neither a junkie nor unemployed, am I ineligible to be considered as part of the "groups that had nothing to do with the problem"?
Let's review:
BIGMIKE STATUS:
Junkie = No
Unemployed = No
Property Taxes Keep Going Up = Yes
Makes Less Money Than He Used To = Yes
Lost Equity In His Home = Yes
Investment Accounts Worth Much Less Than 2 Years Ago = Yes
Feeding 5 mouths on one salary = Yes
Saving diligently to prepare to put kids through college without handouts = Yes
Graduated from a top university = Yes
Worked extraordinarily hard in life = Yes
(I realize those last three are seen as negatives in the eyes of the liberal establishment)
So, the solution to the state's bullcrap bloated budget is to tax me 50% higher than before? Did I somehow have "something to do with the problem"?
God Bless America.
By the "groups who have nothing to do with the problem" I mean the service agencies. Is it fair to tax everyone 50 percent more? No. Is it fair to cut the budgets from all these groups who are not the problem with state government? No. So what is the answer? Our politicians don't know. What do you think it is?
You can't seriously think that the bloat in the state budget is entirely attributable to our state efforts to look after the poor, the defenseless, the disabled, and the addicted, can you?
If you need some education on the matter, you should just jump in Blago's private plane and fly down to Springfield to do a little investigative expose' on it.
Chris: Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're talking about this. I don't mean to be too flippant. I'm mad at Quinn, not you. In case you can't tell, I'm a small government guy. Defense, infrastructure, and essential services. That's where I'm in favor of the government butting in. And that's about it. That (in addition to my myriad other right leaning tendencies which aren't relevant to what we're talking about here) used to make me a Republican . Not sure what that makes me these days.
No, I don't think the bloat in the state budget is because of social services, but that's what Quinn was going to cut to deal with the problem. He has backed off that since I wrote the original post, however. Today he announced he wanted to cut $1 billion by laying off 2,200 state workers. I'd guess there is a lot of programs we don't need or that could be much more efficient. The question is whether they will be the ones that are cut or not. The problem is when you wait until you only have a few days to make a decision, it's really hard to make good choices. They should have been seriously working on this months ago.
Legalize pot. Between savings on enforcement and new revenue from taxes, we would probably have a budget surplus in 2 years.
Before any tax increase can ever be considered, all benefits provided illegal aliens for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security, free medical care and housing must end. Only when this is accomplished could we discuss the state budget.