Compare and Contrast

For the first time in four years Illinois has managed to enact a budget on time. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday signed into law a $38.5 billion spending plan for state government, approving a full budget on time for the first time since he took office in 2015.

Flanked by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Rauner touted the legislation as the product of “a great team effort, a great bipartisan effort.”

“Today we are having a small celebration,” Rauner said at a signing ceremony at the James R. Thompson Center in the Loop, adding that the budget was a compromise. “It is not perfect, but it’s a good step in the right direction.”

The budget legislation is the product of negotiations between the Democrats who control the General Assembly and Republican lawmakers allied with the governor.

Unlike in previous years, when Rauner had insisted that a budget deal come alongside approval of his broader legislative agenda, the governor this time requested only a balanced budget that required no new taxes. That meant that lawmakers were free to spend the money they’d raised through a new income tax increase that was enacted last summer over Rauner’s objections.

The plan maintains state government spending close to existing levels. It boosts funding for early childhood and K-12 education by a combined $407 million. And it projects savings of $445 million from new pension buyout options for state pensioners.

It’s amazing how elections in the fall tend to focus the mind.

On the other hand this morning roughly a dozen cancellations of RFBs from the State of Illinois have crossed my desk, all cancelled because there were no bidders. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you don’t pay your bills.