It seems to be “stick our noses into Illinois politics” day among the national punditry. George Will remarks on Illinois’s problems Gov. Rauner must address:
Rauner, 58, won his first elective office by promising to change Illinois’s political culture of one-party rule by entrenched politicians subservient to public-sector unions. This culture’s consequences include:
After more than a dozen credit-rating downgrades in five years, Illinois has the lowest rating among the states. Unfunded public employees’ pension liabilities are estimated, perhaps conservatively, at $111 billion, the nation’s largest such deficit as a percentage of state revenue. Currently, public pensions consume nearly 25 percent of general state revenues. The state owes vendors $6.4 billion in unpaid bills, and more than 1 million people have left Illinois for less dysfunctional states in the last 15 years. Debt per resident is about $24,989, compared with $7,094 in neighboring Indiana.
Left unmentioned in the column is that the fourteen years of Republican governors that preceded twelve years of Democratic governors weren’t distinguished by excellence in governing, either, and the previous Republican governor is presently serving a term in jail for corruption in office.
Rauner faces major obstacles in getting anything material accomplished. Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses of the Illinois legislature so it will largely be up to them. The best case scenario would seem to be to let the Republican governor take the heat for doing unpopular things that will need to be done if Illinois is not to founder.
At this point just leaving office without going to jail would be something of an accomplishment.
