Two years ago, just before Gov. Bruce Rauner’s first budget address to the General Assembly, I was on fire with curiosity.
The rookie politician had run on the vague promise that he could get Illinois’ collapsing financial house in order without raising taxes. In fact he’d insisted that lawmakers allow most of a temporary income tax increase to expire.
But the time for slogans and platitudes had passed. The Illinois Constitution demands that the budget process begin with the governor preparing and submitting a "budget for the ensuing fiscal year" in which "proposed expenditures shall not exceed funds estimated to be available."
Balanced, in other words.
Could he do it?
No, he could not. Even after laying out some $6 billion in program cuts, the plan he offered in mid-February 2015 balanced only by assuming $2 billion in savings from obviously unconstitutional proposed changes to the public pension laws.
The constitution requires the House and Senate in turn to counter the governor’s proposed budget with a series of spending bills in which "appropriations for (the) fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year."
Balanced, in other words.
Did they do it?
No, they did not. Instead, the Democratically controlled legislature sent Rauner what amounted to a spending wish list and invited him to use his veto pen to cut more than $4 billion to bring it into balance.
Rauner didn’t take that bait and refused to negotiate on a taxing-and-spending plan until the General Assembly passed elements of his broader pro-business, anti-union agenda.
And, as you know, a standoff ensued. Democrats, led by veteran House Speaker Michael Madigan, insisted that budget talks, almost impossibly complicated on their own, not be further complicated by Rauner’s non-budgetary ultimatums.
Court orders and other side deals allowed 90 percent of state spending to continue without formal appropriations while human services and higher education, in particular, suffered.
One year ago, just before Rauner’s second budget address, I was but mildly smoldering with curiosity.
By then I knew the governor didn’t have any magic beans in his bag and had no intention of proposing a straightforward, balanced mix of revenues and expenditures. I simply wondered how he’d wriggle out of his constitutional duty a second time.
Well, he did it by proposing a budget that was $3.5 billion in the red and offering Democratic legislators a choice on how to fill that hole: They could either pass some of his non-budget agenda items as a precondition for negotiating on cuts and new taxes — the ol’ hostage routine — or they could give him unprecedented, unilateral emergency authority over nearly all of state spending so he could make the necessary cuts on his own.
The Democrats rejected the choice, naturally. And the House responded with another wish list that didn’t balance spending with anticipated revenue as the constitution required.
The standoff continued. And if you think it’s just some bookkeeping abstraction, I recommend going to the YouTube channel for "Stranded by the State," a documentary project by Chicago’s Kartemquin Films (of "Hoop Dreams" fame) and Illinois Public Media.
The segments, which have been knitted together for airing on public TV stations this month, show how the human costs in reduced and eliminated services for individuals are compounding long-term financial costs for all state residents.
The imperative for the governor to step up and do his job — to propose an actual budget with no fairy dust sprinkled on it — and for the legislature to respond by doing its job — to turn that proposal into legislation — has never been greater.
Yet this year, just before Rauner’s third budget address Wednesday afternoon in Springfield, my curiosity is a sodden mound of ashes.
Nothing Rauner has said in his recent public remarks, including in a cheesy Facebook Live curtain-raiser Tuesday afternoon, makes me wonder if he’ll say something bold or interesting. Nothing indicates he’s any less determined to force Madigan to knuckle under to some of his extrinsic demands as a precondition to budget negotiations, or any more willing to make the politically risky decision to take the lead on hammering out a state spending plan.
And yes, there’s plenty of cowardice and hypocrisy to go around here. Our elected officials don’t want to own the painful combination of tax increases and spending cuts necessary to make up for years of irresponsible fiscal stewardship. Even the tentative moves in the Senate to strike a "grand bargain" compromise have sent lawmakers scurrying for cover as lobbyists and ideologues fire their flaming arrows.
But fear, stubbornness and blaming others has gotten us nowhere in two years except way deeper in debt, and it’s gotten us nothing but misery and ever more wretched bond ratings.
Will the governor at last do the job Wednesday that the constitution demands. Will he stop playing policy games and begin to lead us out of this mess by proposing a balanced budget without strings attached. Or will he instead continue to hope that whatever political advantage comes from this slow-motion disaster will accrue to him and the Republicans.
Notice that I did not use question marks in the previous paragraph.
Because I’m not really asking.
I already know the answers and, sadly, so do you.
Twitter @EricZorn
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