The hot topic with both the professional and amateur news media today is the revelation that former FBI deputy director Mark Felt was “Deep Throat”—the informant that gave young reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward the ammo to blow apart the Nixon presidency in the Watergate scandal. This is a story with little real significance. Nixon is dead. Woodward and Bernstein are venerable silverbacks of the journalistic profession, heaped with honors. The political party over which Nixon presided is equally dead since even a casual glance at television news or the newspaper will tell you that today’s Republican Party bears no more resemblance to Nixon’s Republican Party than I do to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion. As Don Imus commented this morning, half the audience knows about the Watergate scandal the same way they know about the French Revolution.
Although both the major Chicago newspapers are leading with the Felt story, both also feature a story that will have substantial importance for Illinoisans today and for years to come: the Illinois legislature has passed a budget without a single Republican vote that solves a $1.2 billion shortfall (the Illinois state constitution requires a balanced budget) by delaying $2.3 billion in payments to a pension fund for teachers, university employees, and state workers.
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Democrats who control the legislature pushed through a roughly $55 billion state budget just hours ahead of their midnight Tuesday deadline, but Republicans complained the deal was loaded with Chicago pork-barrel projects to win crucial votes.
Exasperated Republicans were left largely on the sidelines as Democrats used their majority to avoid a repeat of last year’s record 54-day overtime session. GOP leaders charged that backroom deals between Democratic leaders and their members added more than $200 million to the final cost of the new spending blueprint.
The foundation for the budget is the controversial diversion of $2.2 billion that was to go toward pensions for teachers and state workers. Instead, the proceeds would boost school funding by more than $300 million, stave off service cuts and fare hikes at the Chicago Transit Authority and help fund general state operations.
Already angered by what they viewed as a pension raid and a budget that shorted their districts on education and mass transit, Republicans railed that Chicago Democrats steered costly pet projects to the city.
Republicans said the rewards to loyal Democrats included $920,000 for the Chicago Aerospace Education Initiative, a $400,000 grant to the Little Black Pearl arts center in Chicago, $94,000 for the Joffrey Ballet’s Sinfonietta orchestra and $1 million for the Beverly Arts Center.
SPRINGFIELD — Overcoming dissension within their ranks, Democrats passed a $54 billion-plus state budget Tuesday that bailed out the Chicago Transit Authority, provided more cash for schools and triggered Republican anger over a generous serving of pork for the city.
Facing a midnight adjournment deadline, the House approved the 2006 budget 63-52 and the Senate voted 32-26 late Tuesday for the plan brokered by Gov. Blagojevich, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago).
“I think there is something in here for each and every one of us to be proud of,” said Rep. Gary Hannig (D-Litchfield), Madigan’s budget point man. “It’s something that will help the state of Illinois and the people we represent move forward.”
The package the Democrats muscled through drew funding from a controversial $2.3 billion cut in state pension payments over two years to the retirement accounts of teachers, university employees and state workers.
The budget also dips into more than 200 special-purpose funds set up to provide services like mammogram screening, veterans rehabilitation and state whistleblowers, though the administration said the special-use funds that were targeted contained surplus cash.
Those steps, coupled with drawing more health-care dollars from Washington, enabled Blagojevich to fill a $1.2 billion deficit, provide $300 million in new funds for schools and $54 million to help the cash-strapped CTA avoid fare hikes and service cuts once the new budget takes effect July 1.
The Democrat-dominated Illinois General Assembly approved on Tuesday night a new state budget that Republicans charged is loaded with pork and heavily weighted for the benefit of Chicago.
Because of the slap-dash way the final budget agreement was put together, lawmakers weren’t really sure just how big a spending plan they were considering. Republicans and Gov. Rod Blagojevich thought it was a $54 billion plan, while House Democrats thought it was nearly $58 billion. Senate Democrats said it was roughly $56 billion.
Whatever the bottom line, a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 was approved before midnight, allowing lawmakers to avoid a second straight year of overtime. Like the controversial pension-diversion plan that made balancing the budget possible, the final spending proposal was passed with only Democratic votes.
“This budget is about shifting money from the suburbs into the city (of Chicago),” said Sen. Peter Roskam, R-Wheaton. “It is about shifting money from downstate to Chicago.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Illinois Democrats pushed a new state budget through the Legislature Tuesday night, closing a $1.2 billion deficit and offering small increases in education and health care but skimping on pension payments to do it.
After negotiations between key Republicans and Democrats broke down, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Democratic leaders decided to act on their own.
The plan they produced cuts the state’s payments into its pension systems for teachers, university employees and state workers. It takes money out of special-purpose funds that are supported by fees, and it captures more federal health care money.
The House approved the key budget bill along party lines, 63-52. The Senate followed suit 32-26.
Republicans angrily condemned the budget, which includes at least $54.4 billion in spending.
Reducing pension payments today pushes billions of dollars in debt off on future generations, they said. And diverting money from other purposes ignores some needs while leaving the basic financial problems to pop up again next year.
“If this budget is balanced, then Enron and Worldcom are still in business,” said Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora.”This budget is not balanced.”
Democrats were working against a deadline. Starting June 1, the number of votes needed to pass budget bills jumps from a simple majority to three-fifths, effectively giving the minority Republicans veto power.
This is an act of political cowardice on the parts of the legislators of both political parties.
Democrats are reluctant to take the political heat for either raising taxes or cutting spending. So they’re putting the pain off until the undefined later.
Republicans are equally cowardly. They’ve been intransigent about raising taxes and have put forward little in the way of a practical alternative themselves, preferring to let the Democrats take whatever heat there may be and delay passage of the budget until the constitutional deadline gives them an effective veto.
This budget is a poor gamble. Interest rates are near historic lows. The likely future collapse of the housing bubble may effectively freeze property tax revenues for a considerable period. I don’t see any particular likelihood for greater enthusiasm for raising the state income tax rates next year or ten years from now than there is now. Cutting spending will be no less painful in the future than it is now nor will the political price be lower.
And it’s unlikely that the state will be able to dump its pension commitment as United Airlines is doing right now. If I’m not mistaken this issue has already been litigated in Illinois. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Consequently, borrowing or issuing bonds now to cover the shortfall now would, in my opinion, be a more prudent course of action. More prudent yet would be cutting spending.
Is there pork-barrel spending in this budget? Friends, this is a government budget in the United States of America in the 21st century. Of course there’s pork-barrel spending in the budget.
As is usual in the state of Illinois Chicago is the whipping boy. Republican legislators, particularly downstate legislators, are complaining about increased spending for Chicago. Their ire is misplaced. Today, as has been the case for many years, Chicago, Cook County, and the Collar Counties (the counties that adjoin Cook County) produce a disproportionately large amount of the state’s revenue and receive a disproportionately small share of the state’s spending. Downstate legislators are, of course, screaming the loudest.
As a note to Democratic politicians, it’s less convincing when you complain about majority tyranny at the federal level when you engage in it at the state level.
There’s been some reaction in the Illinois blogosphere:
Madigan [ed. Speaker of the Illinois House Michael Madigan] keeps it so close to the vest in this case, I can’t be sure why he wanted to do this even though it’s essentially what he has criticized Blagorgeous for doing in the past. It’s a bad idea in the long term, though not quite as bad as the Republicans claim–and as Dan points out, it’s worse politically for them with the Dems getting out of session on time than being able to scream about how much overtime would have cost.
It’s a bad thing to not put money into pensions for a few years. The Governor was right to call to shore up the pensions and the benefit trims in the pension deal are significant and deserve credit. It isn’t easy to take on pensioners or school districts. So the only tactic left for the GOP is to call the trims superficial and focus on the 2.2 billion not contributed to the pensions. But that doesn’t really resonate outside of pensioners and state employees. The far superior result for the GOP would have been an overtime session where those ‘irresponsible, mismanaging Democrats can’t get the job done again.’ That would have portrayed an image of incompetence. Instead, the Dems are looking like they can portray an image of responsibility in a tough budget to the average voter. Maybe if the GOP tacticians agree with that sentiment of a lack of any advantage, they might agree to bond the 2.2 billion to save the state billions more than the 30 (or whatever) billion the implemented reforms will save.
If it were any other state, I wouldn’t believe this story, but Illinois Democrats have apparently found a way to close the budget deficit: Skip paying our pension bills, and hope everything turns out OK.
Democratic leaders pushed forward Tuesday with their plan for a new state budget built around one-time revenues and delaying payments of state expenses.
What the Democrats in Springfield are doing with this budget is astonishing – they are quite simply choosing which expenses to pay and which not to pay, codifying it, and then passing it into law without a single Republican vote.
I’ll update this post with additional reaction as it becomes available.
UPDATE: Spoons’s title to his post about the budget is worth the price of admission: “There is not enough money in the entire Illinois state budget…” (to get me to write about the Illinois state budget)
