State News

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Despite Illinois’ overwhelming deficit, on March 10 Gov. Pat Quinn presented a “borrow and spend” budget that the Senate Republican Caucus says may be the most irresponsible budget ever submitted to the General Assembly. “We saw a speech today that was short in many ways,” said Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno. “It was short time-wise, short on specifics, short on ideas and, in general, short on leadership at a time when we desperately need some.”
Sen. Radogno said that the governor’s budget proposal is the same song and dance as last year, noting, “Who would have thought that after Blagojevich was gone for a year we could be worse off—and we are worse off. We are not making any progress.”
Not only is the budget proposal out of balance by almost $5 billion—violating the governor’s constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget—under the plan presented by Quinn nearly a fifth of General Funds spending doesn’t have a single penny to back it up.
The Governor also advanced a 33 percent increase on the state income tax, proposing a surcharge from 3 percent to 4 percent for education funding. However, Senate Republicans stressed that this $3 billion increase was obviously a tactical maneuver to pressure lawmakers into increasing taxes.
“He wants to cut 17 percent from the classroom without one penny cut from the State Board of Education, which is of course the bureaucracy,” said Radogno. “That’s nothing but a game.”
“Hiding in the shadows is a plan for a major tax hike next January. In the meantime, the Governor and the Democrat majority will keep digging the hole deeper and deeper,” Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) said.
The Senate GOP says that the budget proposed by the Governor is such a failure of leadership that no one would submit this budget if they had any expectation at all that they would be here to implement it.
The proposal does nothing to control spending or address the state’s existing deficit. Though the Governor has proposed $2.2 billion in reductions, Senate Republicans caution that in Fiscal Year 2010 the Governor also promised $1 billion in cuts; yet, most of those cuts never happened.
Additionally, the “borrow and spend” plan relies on up to $9 billion in borrowing, which represents roughly one third of proposed general funds spending next year.
“This could very well be the worst budget ever presented to the General Assembly,” Sen. Pam Althoff (R-Crystal Lake) said. “It’s disappointing the Governor didn’t even make an effort to balance the budget, or provide a way of repaying the borrowing.”
“Borrowing doesn’t get us out of trouble,” said Sen. Dale Risinger (R-Peoria). “It’s like having a $20,000 debt on your credit card, and getting a home equity loan to pay it off with a lower interest rate, which is good, but then not cutting up the credit card and running the balance back up. We have to stop that – and the sooner the better. We should have stopped it five years ago.”
Asst. Sen. Republican Leader Dan Rutherford (R-Pontiac) said, “We need to hit the ‘reset button,’ and figure out our state’s real priorities. This pattern of borrowing and failing to encourage job creation will only worsen our state’s ability to recover from this massive deficit.”
The Senate Republican Caucus is once again calling for spending reductions, by limiting spending to available revenues. The caucus has offered a number of reasonable short-term and long-term recommendations—particularly relating to reforming the state’s Medicaid program and Illinois’ pension systems—which could have saved much-needed revenue and substantially reduced Illinois’ debt burden.
“I’ve never suggested that we can cut $13 billion, but there are still cuts that could be made,” said Radogno. “We need to do what the private sector has done which is to become more efficient with the dollars that we do have. It happens across the board. Businesses can do it. Families do it. We can do it.”
Democrats passive aggressively halt transparency, Medicaid reform measures
In a March 10 subcommittee Democrat lawmakers passive-aggressively killed a number of Senate Republican measures to increase public transparency and reign in Illinois’ substantial Medicaid costs by voting “present” on the legislation.
Commonsense Medicaid reforms advanced by Sen. Carole Pankau (R-Itasca) were halted when three Democrat lawmakers voted present on the legislation. Senate Bill 2991 would establish a $10,000 asset limit for recipients of KidCare and All Kids, while Senate Bill 2989 would limit All Kids eligibility to United States citizens and Senate Bill 2900 would require additional income verification for All Kids recipients.
“Medicaid is a quality program but unless we make sure that only those who qualify to be in the program have the advantages of the program, we will dilute its effects. These three bills attempted to rectify our current situation where people are ‘working the system,’” said Sen. Pankau.
Democrat lawmakers have consistently refused to advance Medicaid reforms, despite evidence that the KidCare and All Kids programs are being severely abused by people who are manipulating the system. Often one pay stub does not accurately reflect an applicant’s annual salary, and similarly, individuals with costly assets should not be receiving health care subsidies.
During another subcommittee, Democrat lawmakers prevented important transparency legislation from advancing by voting “present.” Sen. Tim Bivens (R-Dixon) introduced Senate Bill 3077, which would add legislators and legislative employees to those whose salary is posted on the Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal Web site database.
The Accountability Portal is a searchable database that was approved by lawmakers last year. It provides the public with information concerning state employees, state expenditures, contracts, and tax credits. However, Bivens introduced Senate Bill 3077 after it became apparent that the law was vaguely drafted in a way that excluded legislators and legislative employees.
Sen. Bivens and the Senate Republican Caucus said that by blocking the measure from advancing, Senate Democrats show they aren’t serious about improving transparency in state government.