* As I mentioned to you the other day, Andy McKenna’s TV ads claim Illinois’ budget deficit is $11 billion and growing by $30 million a day. That would mean a $22 billion deficit by the beginning of next fiscal year. I asked the campaign about those figures, but never received an explanation.
Well, reporters asked McKenna Wednesday about the $11 billion number and McKenna claimed the deficit was actually less than half that amount…
On Wednesday, McKenna told reporters that if elected, he’d roll back state spending to 2006 levels, reverse expensive health care expansions initiated during Rod Blagojevich’s years as governor and push for pension reforms in order to save $5 billion and balance the budget.
Asked about the other $6 billion in red ink, McKenna, a Chicago Republican, questioned the figure and challenged the current administration to explain it.
But everyone from the legislative agency tasked with tracking economic activity to investment analysts who set the state’s credit rating have put the state’s deficit for the next year at $11 billion if not more. Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn attempted to create the illusion of a balanced budget this year by borrowing $3.5 billion to make pension payments, plugging education and health care holes with billions from the federal stimulus program and not paying nearly $4.5 billion to vendors on time.
Oy.
McKenna’s running mate claimed that the money owed state vendors which is rolled over from one fiscal year to the next isn’t part of the deficit..
“You know, we’ve got at least, at this point, four-and-a-half billion dollars in unpaid bills that have been rolling over. We didn’t accumulate that in one year. You’re not going to pay that off in one year,” said Palatine Republican state Sen. Matt Murphy, McKenna’s favorite for the lieutenant governor post. “The only time it’s ever suggested that we’re going to pay that off in one year is when people down here are trying to sell a tax hike. That figure of 11 (billion dollars) is obviously inclusive of that rollover in any estimate I’ve seen. So the five billion we’re talking about, in my view, is pretty close to filling the entire hole. As Andy has said, if you don’t have the money, you can’t spend the money.”
Actually, the rollover amount is less than that. The $4.5 billion is only what’s owed right now.
* The Daily Herald also brings up this valid point about Sen. Kirk Dillard’s economic plan…
Dillard, a veteran state senator from Hinsdale, said Illinois’ budget problems are driving jobs away, partly because businesses don’t know whether they’ll soon be forced to pay higher taxes and fees.
He promised to freeze state spending at current levels “for the foreseeable future.”
His campaign did not immediately respond to questions about how Dillard could freeze spending while also accomplishing his goals for schools, infrastructure and tax breaks — including what he called “the nation’s most aggressive tax credit for research.”
* And check out these strange lines from today’s Northwest Herald editorial…
Quinn’s plan to borrow $500 million is half-baked, at least to the extent anyone believes it’s going to do anything but put Illinois further in a bind.
And lollygagging is a fairly apt way to describe Hynes’ refusal to acquiesce to the governor’s plan to use the borrowed money to pay the state’s bills.
OK, so Hynes is supposed to speed up his endorsement of a half-baked borrowing plan? I don’t get it.
* While everyone bickers, the state’s credit rating takes another hit…
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its rating on Illinois’s general obligation bonds, reflecting the state’s budget gap.
The rating was lowered to A-plus from AA-minus.
[Hat tip: Newsalert]
- Will County Woman - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 10:48 am:
SWM
nothing more, nothing less.
- sweaty freddy - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 10:54 am:
Rich why are you even trying to figure out the Northwest Herald editorials anymore? Remember they wrote the editorial in 2006 to vote for Topinka for Governor and Quinn for Lt. Governor even though it is impossible to do so in Illinois.
- CircularFiringSquad - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 10:54 am:
Come on Capt Fax give OutsiderAndy&MuttMurphy a break
When you are a true outsider you cannot tell how big the nasty deficit might be.
Maybe they should hail ChopperJim and launch a search for whol deficit. I bet it is hiding right ext to ChopperJim’s illegal aliens.
Wheels UP
- Ghost - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 10:59 am:
The states rollover in unpaid bills was traditionally a chunk of bills which arrived 30-60 days before the next fiscal year, and as i recall were mostly medicaid. These averaged something like 800k. The State had not been rolling over billions of other vendor bills that had ben outstanding for months; these by vast majority new bills coming in near the end of the fiscal year.
More improtantly, Mckenna should read up on state finance law. The State can not pay a prior years fiscal bills with present years fiscal money. Bills past the lapsed period and file a claim in the cort of claims, but if there is no prior year fiscal money to pay those bills then they do not ever get paid.
the State can not file or be forced in bonkruptcy; but it also can not be forced to pay an expired fiscla years bills with present day money. i.e. Mckenna’s plan to pay bak over years is illegal, and operationaly all of those people owed money end up never getting paid.
So Mcknna and GOP in support of helping buiness are about to stiff paying those buissnesses billions of dollars and balance the States budget by making every small buisness that does work for the State carry the entire burden of our deficit. After all, those privates buisnesses can file bankruptcy.
Too bad legislative salaraies (and Mckennas salary etc) can not be witheld until all vendors have been paid. I wonder how many GOP people would be opposed to a tax increase if the tate stopped paying them.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:03 am:
sf, I’m well aware of that, but it’s always good to revisit silly people every now and then to see what they’re up to.
- cover - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:23 am:
Ghost, you may have finally found a way to force a solution, though it would never stand a chance of passing. If legislators were treated like the state’s vendors and had to wait 3-4 months for their paychecks, they would be more willing to take action to fix the state’s real problems. Instead, they pass fake budgets that continue to paper over the problems with more debt. Does the state’s bond rating have to be downgraded to junk status before a real solution is enacted?
- The Doc - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:25 am:
==McKenna’s running mate claimed that the money owed state vendors which is rolled over from one fiscal year to the next isn’t part of the deficit..==
I’m certain vendors and state agencies receiving payments months in arrears and being forced to operate without these revenues are relieved to hear that Murphy doesn’t consider this portion of the state’s debt part of the deficit.
Doesn’t this suggest that a McKenna/Murphy ticket would continue this practice if elected? We’ll “balance” the budget by stiffing as many vendors as possible, and play cute with fiscal year accounting? Do they think that a heavily Democratic GA will allow them to spin such a tale in office?
- zatoichi - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:39 am:
“You know, we’ve got at least, at this point, four-and-a-half billion dollars in unpaid bills that have been rolling over. We didn’t accumulate that in one year. You’re not going to pay that off in one year,”
So having a contract with the state means you get pressured to perform as agreed to, but if you get stiffed by the state for payment for up to a year, too bad for you. Oh happy day. Makes for wonderful customer relations.
- just sayin' - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:44 am:
Were it not for Bill Brady, I would say Andy McKenna is the least bright in the GOP field. Just sayin’.
Money can only get a candidate so far, and in Andy’s case I think that means another fourth place finish. Maybe third if he’s really lucky.
- Moving to Oklahoma - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:54 am:
Andy McKenna = Joke
- wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 11:59 am:
The McKenna vs. McKenna debate is fascinating. I wonder who’ll win.
The McKennas, along with Dillard and Brady, plan to cure the deficit by pretending it doesn’t exist. Proft will cure it by cutting taxes in half (fancy math).
Don’t you miss the days of Main Street Illinois Republicans? I think talk radio and cable TV did them in.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 1:49 pm:
Oh I get it now! Non-officeholder McKenna got us into the huge financial red ink the State of Illinois is in now. Or the other Republicans running for office. They did it! The Fools!
Not Blagojevich. Not Quinn. Not Michael Madigan. Not Cullerton. Not a single Democrat in the House. Not a single Democrat in the Senate.
So we ridicule McKenna and Republicans running to try to get on the playing field those Democrats ripped to shreds and not those bums?
Reminds me of the inability of the Chicago Park District to grow a solid grass field on a certain lakefront football stadium. Now ranked second worst playing field in the NFL? Makes you wonder about a PARK DISTRICT!
Yesterday I read we had the second worst financial situation of all the states of the Union, with California the worst.
And McKenna gets ridiculed for it?
Someone want to try to explain that to me? Who is being unrealistic here?
- wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 2:08 pm:
Louis, McKenna is being ridiculed because he’s disputing his own campaign commercial. Kind of like when Charles Barkley said he was misquoted in his autobiography.
I do see, however, your direct connection with the Solider Field turf.
- LincolnLounger - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 3:42 pm:
With all that money, why cannot Andy McKenna ever put together a formidable campaign? It’s embarrassing.
- Ghost - Thursday, Dec 10, 09 @ 3:58 pm:
Louis may I suggest decaf coffee.
Pingback Illinois 2010 Elections: Kirk Dillard, Andy McKenna Keep the Door Open to an Illinois Income Tax Increase to Balance Illinois Budget « THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER - Friday, Dec 11, 09 @ 10:18 am:
[…] One version of McKenna’s calculations put the deficit around $22 billion–as Miller notes–or around $7 billion as his Lt. Governor running mate, State Senator Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) recently argued in rhetorical acrobats, claiming the $4.6 billion in unpaid bills are not, technically, part of the deficit. Whatever. […]