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* Gov. Quinn was on Fox Chicago’s “Good Day Chicago” program this morning and wound up debating Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman.
Tillman made one claim that is just way out of whack. He claimed that reducing state worker salaries to private sector levels would save $3 billion. Huh? That’s about equal to the payroll for all state employees.
Anyway, give it a watch…
*** UPDATE *** Gov. Quinn is meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times edit board and the CS-T is live tweeting…
# Feb. 2 date is “designed to protect incumbents.”
# Quinn seeks later primary - 3rd Tuesday of June - to cut down on money-raising malfeasance. Primary is currently Feb. 2.
More…
Quinn: Business community may be willing to accept tax increase in trade for public pension reform/tax.
Yeah. That’ll happen.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 2:17 pm
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So who’s going to be voting on this? Incumbents. Gosh, I wonder which way that will break…
Comment by soccermom Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 2:31 pm
Who is advising Quinn? They told him to go on Fox News? Boy, that worked well for them. Maybe, just maybe, if they watch this interview over a couple of times they’ll see how the business community is responding to the tax hike. I sure didn’t hear…” Hey Pat, thanks for whacking teachers pensions, we’ll go along with the tax increase!”
Newsflash for the Governor’s office… you need to find some allies for your budget… and they don’t watch Fox News!
Comment by DC Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 2:50 pm
I took a 50% pay hit when I became a state employee.
I would welcome the doubling of my pay that would come with going to private sector pay scales.
Comment by krome Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 2:57 pm
Hey, I like a June primary!!
Comment by scoot Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:03 pm
No way will legislators go for that. No way.
Think about it. They end the session May 31st, take a bunch of tough votes and then face voters three weeks later?
No way.
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:06 pm
Thank you Krome! Being a state employee is not a gravy train. For most, the big bucks don’t start rolling in until you leave!
Comment by J boogy Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:11 pm
1. Summer vacation. Good for teacher’s unions that want to put precinct workers on the street to defeat quinn for raiding their pension. Bad if you want parents to vote.
2. As Rich points out, the odds of getting any BIPARTISAN legislation passed are nil if the primary is in June.
3. First September. Now June. Its beginning to look more and more like the only thing Quinn is interested in is buying himself more time.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:11 pm
== Quinn: Business community may be willing to accept tax increase in trade for public pension reform/tax. ==
Yeah, Pat. That’s why they were standing next to you when you announced your tax increase.
WAKE UP!!
IFT, IEA and AFSCME were some of the biggest supporters of a tax increase. THEY can actually get you more Republican votes than the State Chamber CAN or ever would.
Moreover, Martin Sandoval is on t.v. opposing your tax increase. You don’t even have Democrats with you.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:15 pm
Maybe I just haven’t watched enough interviews with Gov. Quinn but the way his shifty eyes can’t focus on anything is pretty distracting. Maybe that’s a new public speaking trick for introducing unpopular tax hikes?
Comment by November Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:15 pm
I think he did ok in the interview. I wish that he had picked up on the $3Billion mistake though. All it takes is a few repeats of that line, and everyone in the State suddenly belives we can cut $3B out of PS&R. Might as well just fire us all.
Comment by How Ironic Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:23 pm
Not atypical for the IPI
Comment by steve schnorf Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 3:44 pm
Rich, your prolly right…it was wishful thinking. But I would hope they push it back from Feb. The March primary always worked out, maybe they should go back to March?
Comment by scoot Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 4:09 pm
a short primary season and a long general election season means that politicians spend most of their time bashing the other party’s guys, and not your own.
If not March or so, but June or late August, the new primary date takes Illinois out of the presidential primary elections. June would be just before the convention.
Comment by Capitol View Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 4:36 pm
I’m starting to feel like Quinn is blowing it. People were mainly excited because he’s not the other guy. It’ll be another guy elected next year.
Comment by Levois Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 4:39 pm
Pretty sure primary debate ended about seven weeks ago. Lets move folkds
Comment by EmptySuitParade Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 4:50 pm
This guy is nuts, I’m a state worker and I follow what my private-sector brothers make in the trade journals. I make a good 24 percent LESS working for the state as far as salary. The benefits and retirement are meant to offset that sacrifice. Tillman seems to play fast and loose with his math and I greatly suspect his organization’s motives when they come out with these wild claims.
Comment by Teabags for the Tillman Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 5:59 pm
I looked up Tillman’s group using Muckety. Just a few expansions of the muckety map, and voila, all the people tagged as contributing to this “think tank” are freepers, far right neoconservative repubs and anti-regulatory business interests.
If I’m Pat Quinn I’m *sure* going to pay a lot of attention to what THOSE folks have to say,..
I will thank Tillman for causing me to find the Muckety site, this is an interesting tool.
Comment by Gregor Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 6:10 pm
Anybody who wants to wack Quinn, remember this: He’s been in Illinois politics for 30 years, and he doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. Doesn’t that tell you something? Give him a break.
He proposes. The GA disposes What a crazy world. Everyone talks, then they make decisions. It’s called democracy.
He’s thinking out loud and trying to involve citizens. Would you prefer backroom deals rammed down everyone’s throats when noone’s looking? The good old days?
Grow up voters. A plurality of you (me for the first term) voted for Blago, twice.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 8:02 pm
Tillman said that one half of all babies born in Illinois are born on medicaid? I hope that’s another flub. If not; wow. That ain’t good.
Comment by Cornerfield Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 8:39 pm
I’d like to see those private sector salaries take effect. That would be a considerable raise!
Comment by anon Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 8:40 pm
Quinn is completely wrong demanding that state employees increase their pension contribution by 50 percent with no increase in benefits. His web site says “Current employees will increase their contribution by 2 percentage points - a reasonable amount for their future retirement.” - sorry, it’s a 50 percent (i.e., from 4% to 6%) increase, Pat.
I would have expected this sort of betrayal from Blago, but from Quinn- who I have always held in high esteem- this is way too much to take.
Comment by DuPage Dave Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 9:46 pm
June primary may not be popular with incumbents and the incumbent protection program, but it would be a breath of fresh air for the state of Illinois and its voters.
Comment by There you go again Friday, Mar 20, 09 @ 10:00 pm
YDD wrote: IFT, IEA and AFSCME were some of the biggest supporters of a tax increase. THEY can actually get you more Republican votes than the State Chamber CAN or ever would.
I enjoy the notion that YDD and I can disagree on many policy issues, but see the absurd IL Political class in a crystal clear fashion.
While I don’t claim to know as much as YDD, I CAN say that if the bloated Education bureaucracy can REALLY get you more Republican votes than the IL Chamber, (and I’m inclined to believe YDD is right), then it merely puts the exclamation point on the utter worthlessness of both the IL Chamber (business toadies selling rope to their hangmen) AND the ILL GOP (just plain toadies).
Worthless Chamber, worthless Republicans.
The state simply screams for leadership.
Comment by Bruno Behrend Saturday, Mar 21, 09 @ 12:15 am
If Quinn has moved back to early June (from the original September) pitch on a primary, then he may have listened to some of the people who have to run the elections. So that puts him well above the last guy (not that it is hard to be well above the last guy).
Comment by krome Saturday, Mar 21, 09 @ 1:34 pm
Please, please please, adjust state employee salaries to private sector levels!!
Will never happen of course, and just makes Tillman look terribly uninformed. How sad to be him.
And the Gov. also wants to cut employee pay to get himself elected by not disturbing the Blag/Jones iniatives. Even sadder. Quinn has become the ‘kinder, gentler’ Blago.
He will go down in Illinos political history as a loyal Lt. Gov.
Comment by Bobs yer Sunday, Mar 22, 09 @ 9:27 pm