Another month crossed off the calendar and still no state budget.
If you see your local lawmaker at the supermarket, be sure to inquire about the ongoing stalemate. Note that the Illinois House and Senate spent only about six of 20 workdays during the month of January in Springfield. Similar schedule for February.
Momentum for a budget deal remains wobbly. The Senate is expected to vote the week of Feb. 6 on a package of bills that are spinning plates at best. The House is working on its own agenda, mostly nonbudget issues so far. Gov. Bruce Rauner delivers his budget plan on Feb. 15 for the fiscal year that starts July 1. And last week, Attorney General Lisa Madigan tossed a grenade into the porcelain.
Madigan announced she would challenge the legality of continuing to pay state workers when there’s no budget in place. Her office says her intent is to speed up a budget agreement with the threat of employees not getting paid. But with lawmakers finally trying to structure a deal, her timing isn’t helpful.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, released its own budget proposal on Tuesday — a plan that would impose no new taxes. It would alleviate the budget crisis by encouraging state workers to transition to cheaper pension plans; ease collective bargaining restrictions placed on local governments while reducing the revenue they get from the state; cut Medicaid rolls by limiting eligibility to only the most disadvantaged; and provide local property tax relief with a five-year freeze.
Some of the institute’s ideas have seen bipartisan support at the Capitol. But with a Republican governor and a Democrat-controlled legislature, policy differences create a frustrating divide between what is needed and what is doable.
Right now, the policy institute’s ideas have little chance of passing. As the crisis worsens, who knows. But the group is correct in its broader premise: Higher taxes will not reverse the state’s financial nosedive. Without meaningful spending reductions and real incentives for businesses to locate here and grow, the new tax revenues being discussed in the Senate would merely evaporate into the state’s financial abyss. We’d be back here in just a few years — still with no structural reforms.
The Senate plan, which is a start, so far includes at least 13 bills that are interdependent. One won’t become law without the others. There’s a budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30. There’s a bill that would give state workers a choice between two lower-cost pension benefits. The plan also includes a two-year property tax freeze, new casinos, an income tax hike to about 5 percent from 3.75 percent, tougher workers’ compensation laws that businesses favor and local government consolidation. Bits of Rauner’s employer-friendly agenda are included.
We aren’t offering a verdict on the details of the Senate bills until they firm up, but we applaud the effort to strike a compromise. Yet the package already has been panned by just about every special interest group in Springfield. The state’s largest public employee union doesn’t want the pension changes, and the business community doesn’t want higher taxes. The health care community doesn’t want the Medicaid changes, and local governments don’t want the property tax freeze. Democrats don’t want the workers’ comp changes, and Republicans don’t want the income tax hike.
The spinning plates in Springfield are fragile and breakable.
But all sides have a moral obligation to keep talking, keep negotiating.
Amazing that, in this state, that’s a big "ask."
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