[il-talk] our disfunctional legislature

[Bill Reif]

The following is one of two editorials appearing in yesterday's Chicago 
Tribune.  I post it here only because it affirms my frustration in 
working with legislative leaders, one of whom is mentioned in the 
article, on important legislation that could really make a difference in 
how blind children in Illinois are educated.  Although we are making 
great strides in working with the U.S. Gongress on national priorities, 
we have been ignored by state representatives of whom I would have 
expected better.  If the legislative strategy is simply to hang on to 
their perks as long as possible by promising much and delivering little, 
they do indeed need to be voted out.  By now, they should have done the 
math to find the right combination of spending cuts and revenue 
enhancements, any of which would be less of a future threat than all 
this borrowing.

Cordially,
Bill Reif, State Legislative Committee Co-Chair

Vote us out Nov. 2.
They haven't sworn off borrowing. Or reformed how they spend money. Or 
fixed leaky
ethics laws. Or given employers reasons to grow jobs here. Instead, 
Illinois legislators
have spent four months enjoying the salaries and perks you lavish on 
them -- and
now they're scheming to start a long summer vacation. This second 
post-Blagojevich
year of charging so many taxpayers for so much dereliction of duty will 
be complete
if lawmakers flutter a banner of surrender from the Capitol dome: "Vote 
us out Nov.
2. You didn't know about the vacation? Legislators evidently exhausted 
by another
session of squandered opportunities hope to wrap up work by Friday. To 
do so, they
may slap together a budget that puts all of us even more billions of 
dollars in debt:
Lawmakers would borrow those billions to cover basic state operations. 
That's like
taking out a mortgage to buy diapers and toothpaste. They would do this 
because once
again they're too weak to limit their spending to the amount of revenue 
the rest
of us send them. This new borrowing, with no spending reforms, would be 
a slap at
taxpayers. It would doom employers and workers to pay years of interest 
and principal
on still more debt. It would rob money from educating children and 
providing health
care. Why? To pay for yet another year when lawmakers flat-out refuse to 
change how
they spend the billions they already have. These two years of stubborn 
failure to
streamline and reinvent Illinois reflect Democratic leaders' desperate 
belief: that
someday a revived economy will give them enough new tax money to pay off 
their deficit
spending, their massive borrowing and their unfunded pension 
obligations. Until that
fantasy comes true, why not borrow even more? Such temptation risks 
another self-inflicted
consequence: rising interest costs that Illinois must pay to sell bonds. 
In an interview
Thursday, Ted Hampton, a public finance executive with Moody's rating 
service, said
he wonders if lawmakers here are willing to exert self-discipline. We 
have a negative
outlook on Illinois," Hampton said. We're concerned. And if no one acts, 
that concern
will grow. Here's what we heard between Hampton's opaque lines: 
Lawmakers are deciding
right now whether Moody's and its rivals further slash what's already 
the second-worst
bond rating in the U.S. That Gov. Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael 
Madigan and Senate
President John Cullerton even would consider more borrowing suggests 
they've spent
too much time in their insular state government beehive. Americans coast 
to coast
are seething over high government spending and the eruption of public 
debt that is
burying taxpayers. Yet incumbent lawmakers evidently bent on replicating 
the ruination
of California and Michigan here in Illinois seem to think they can do so 
and be re-elected
Nov. 2. Many, in fact, seem to think of little else. Voters, though, may 
not be as
stupid as legislators hope. We hear from more and more citizens who 
realize that
tax-wary employers think twice about expanding in a state destined to 
dun its businesses
and workers for its devastating debts and pension obligations. No 
wonder, then, that
Illinois has lost almost half a million jobs in 10 years. No wonder 
Illinois ranks
48th in job creation. Yes, we've said some of this before. But now is 
the moment
-- if legislators adjourn after doing so little -- when these incumbents 
seize full
ownership of the indebtedness, the unsustainable pension benefits, the 
high-business-tax
stature that for two decades has condemned Illinois to trail the U.S. in 
job growth.
We've seen this movie before. As sessions wind down, small-think 
legislators and
their apologists focus less on addressing crises than on going home. 
Another borrowing
binge now will signal that the Democratic fix is to act clueless now -- 
and to try
raising taxes after the election. That ploy entraps taxpayers in a 
zero-sum game:
Because lawmakers won't restructure how they spend gazillions on 
Medicaid or on pensions
for current employees -- let alone end college tuition waivers for 
children of their
cronies -- you have to restructure. Just send them more of your money. 
Vote us out
Nov. 2" is an unorthodox campaign lyric. But we suspect millions of 
Illinoisans will
be dancing to the beat..