Legislative Collapse
Published by Al Adomite on June 1st, 2008
By Al
It’s almost not news anymore when a gaming proposal collapses under its own weight on the last day of spring session in Springfield. This year, it was a gaming expansion proposal, a lease of the lottery (wasn’t that money supposed to fund education?), and a $34 billion capital plan.
As for the badly-needed capital plan, wasn’t the dice already thrown on that proposal? The ship had left the harbor, first in 2005 when House Democrats needed MOUs (memos of understanding), then in 2007 when their entire caucus’s pork projects were amendatorily vetoed from the budget and then not restored by the Senate.
Trust is the only real “capital” in politics. Our democracy places power into multiple hands so those elected can “share” power, working to keep it from corrupting any one person absolutely. But that also keeps individual officials from unilaterally governing by themselves. When that trust breaks down, government slows to a crawl.
Any $60 billion a year enterprise needs maintenance, and we’re seeing the outcome of several years of ignoring political “maintenance”. Consider the landscape: revenues are not rosy, debt is burdensome, state vendors are now again slowly-paid. These are rather serious issues that have virtually been ignored.
When George Ryan pushed IllinoisFirst in 1999, legislators were still bickering over a nearly $1 billion “rainy day” fund. Governor Edgar had left the state in a fantastic financial condition. The state’s fiscal house was in order and, at that time, a $12 billion capital plan was still a risky venture. If legislators had known 9/11 was only two years into the future, they might not have acted so aggressively.
This year, the state is already mortgaged to the hilt, income is not meeting expenses, and members of the family have all but filed for divorce. And the best storyline this spring was to take the family to counseling (Hastert & Poshard) to try to negotiate the financing of a new luxury car.
For those who decry the failure of the capital bill, consider the necessary items that went unresolved all spring. Good governance is not laying an unbalanced annual budget as a foundation for a new $34 billion capital spending plan.
I’m sure we’ll see a round of press releases expressing “shock” and “disappointment” and “anger”. I’m looking for the first press release that suggests heading back to Springfield for the summer to solve the real problems in Springfield: raising revenues through economic expansion and finding a plan to resolve state debt.
If not, legislators will “bravely” go to Springfield after the election and just raise income taxes. If legislators and the Governor would just go to Springfield and make a sincere attempt to fix these problems, without a tax increase, they might actually deserve the pay raises they just failed to vote against giving themselves.
Filed under State Issues, Uncategorized
June 1st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I admit there is little “shock” where the failure to pass a Capital spending plan is concerned. Mostly just disapointment in the lack of leadership from the Local State Representatives. Despite our local State Representatives opportunity earlier in the year to demand the badly needed capital spending plan, they caved to Chicago and Madigan, yet again, and voted to bail out the Chicago Mass Transit System. The opportunity was there your basis political “quid pro quo,” but all but 1 of our Local Representatives failed to grasp this most simple concept. Now, Chicago and Madigan don’t need the Capital plan or downstate, and we got what our elected leaders allowed us to get. Despite many of the “Promises” that we were fed, many of the people in this area will not forget the only real opportunity we had to get the Capital plan, and our elected Representatives lack of initiative to go and demand it. Enjoy the raise men, while good hard working men and women Southern Illinois go without jobs, insurance, and benefits for yet another year.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Sadly, democrats just spend, spend, spend and then spend some more. Rep. Jay Hoffman is the leader of this fiscal mess. Some Republicans have jumped on this spending craze, because it feels so good. (See previous blog comments about not being able to ever play the democrats game) Of course, they will be back to raise taxes. It will be a crisis situation.
The years of the Edgar administration, with fiscal sanity and responsibility, and Republican control in the house and senate are distant reminder of what can be accomplished, when rational thinking people are in charge.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Perception of trust is the most crucial issue for any politician. How many people vote for the same old people just because they ‘like’ they guy. Look at the county board 10 years ago…many were serving 20 years because people trusted them. (Note that trust does not equal quality.)
It’s not only Democrats who spend: Ryan and Lee Daniels were culprits along with the Dems. In fact, I got tired of going to photo ops every time Ron Stephens passed out one of those $40,000 Illinois FIRST checks!