Here’s a theory of what the overwhelmingly Democratically-controlled Illinois legislature is up to. Dennis Byrne, writing at the Tribune, claims:
As the Tribune recently noted, the Democratic strategy, now that Democrats refused to pass a balanced budget, will be to “force (Gov. Bruce) Rauner to wear the jacket for billions in budget cuts that would hit social service programs in the hopes that he’ll feel enough heat to eventually sign on to a tax increase …” As if the heartless governor, who didn’t bring on this crisis, is the one who is depriving the poor, elderly, young and others dependent on state aid and programs. How droll. What brass.
Mostly blame House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton (both Democrats) and their deep-pocket contributors, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other public employee unions. Their incessant and greedy demands for more, more and more have forced government to borrow more, more and more to a point approaching bankruptcy.
Champions of the middle class, downtrodden and huddled masses? Hardly. These very Democrats are hypocritically robbing the schools, hospitals and social service providers of billions and billions of dollars that must instead go into pensions and debt service.
As a famous Ilinoisan once said, you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Fortunately for Illinois’s legislators, they don’t have to fool all of the people all of the time. They just have to fool enough of the people in their districts all of the time to re-elect them term after term after term.
If that’s their strategy, it will probably work. But working isn’t enough. There are actual problems facing Chicago and Illinois and fooling just enough voters to get re-elected just prolongs the agony.
I think I’ve commented before that Rauner’s and my paths have crossed before. Plus, I know what he does like the back of my hand. I seriously doubt that sheer political pressure will work. He’s a steely eyed financial guy; he knows the stakes. And he’s a pragmatic deal guy. I think he will cut the best deal he can consistent with actually improving the problem materially, and not worry about the political fallout. I even think he cares little about a second term, so he’s got a bit more flexibility to hold out.
That doesn’t change the blind or uninformed nature of the electorate. But it does mean that flying very close to the sun might be an option.
Could get interesting.
More than the contributions unions make to their campaigns, it’s likely that Madigan (and to a lesser degree, Cullerton) are able to talk to union leaders about the “good guys” who should get more or less support (financially, ‘boots on the ground’) during election cycles.
Democrats are betting that cuts in social services will bring Rauner to the table, just as Rauner’s hoping that if things get bad enough, everything will be on the table to get us out of the hole.
Also, let’s not be afraid to lay blame at union leadership: They’ve been able to see, for decades, that they get paper increases to funds that never actually got money in the bank. Any one of them could have started demanding that the money actually get put into the funds as part of negotiations – shoring up their pensions before others, for example, but they didn’t, because it’s easier to tell the rank and file “the state’s constitution guarantees your money” than accept a lower increase on paper for more money in the bank.
I don’t pay to much attention to the Illinois posts, but I’m slowly getting the impression that Madigan is the guy that’s actually been running the state for the last however many years. Is that correct?
I’m not sure about the strategy of passing an unbalanced budget. That gives the Governor the authority to prioritize spending, even without a line-item-veto. Giving Quinn an unbalanced budget meant he would pick and choose which appropriations to fully fund, but his priorities were largely consistent with the Dem legislators.
The Dems will have more problems with Rauner cuts, which might be directed towards the poorest or to the Chicago area without many political consequences. If the Dems simply cannot pass a balanced budget without tax increases, I do not understand why they didn’t extend the previous tax increase during the last lame duck session. (The easy answer might be lack of votes, but now you got to deal with Rauner.)
Still hard to tell whether Rauner knows what he’s doing. His background certainly didn’t involve the art of “public negotiations,” and the demonizing of Madigan wasn’t going to make a deal with him an easier, and it makes Rauner appear immoderate.
Elipses: Michael Madigan has been the Illinois Speaker of the House with the exception of one term in the minority since 1983. He’s not popular with anybody, but the main problems appear to be how long he’s been a leader, lack of political charisma, bankrolling weak candidates in downstate districts, and low tolerance for risk. For example, he probably wanted the final budget deal to be made after the deadline so that a 3/5th vote would be required. He likes a broad consensus on big issues, which often means kicking the can.
Yup. He’s basically the king of Illinois. His daughter is attorney general and it’s widely assumed she’ll run for governor.
and the money was used for other purposes, e.g. expanding the Medicaid rolls, granting new benefits to seniors. Just to name two. Illinois being Illinois I’m guessing lots of union leaders’ kids got nice, shiny state appointments, too.
I guess we all come at it differently. On Madigan, I’m more with Dave than PD. He runs it lock stock and barrel.
I also don’t buy the public vs private negotiations thing. If can kicking room was available I would. The strategy would be different. But the numbers have reached an endpoint. This thing is going down soon. IL can’t print money. The bond investors are on the edge of refusal, or usury. The tax well is all but dried up, especially relative to need in a good old sources and uses table. Spending cuts will be visible and born by favored constituencies. There is nowhere to hide.
As I’ve said. I expect a real shit show.