* Writing a weekly syndicated column with a Friday afternoon deadline is tough during end-of-session week (or, as it turned out to be “pause-of-session” week). But I had a pretty good idea where things were heading for a few days: Right onto the rocks. So, here it is…

One of the things that became crystal clear last week during the Illinois Senate’s debate over a new state budget was that Democratic legislative leaders have completely broken the budget-making process.

It’s no big secret that more and more power has been concentrated into the hands of the leaders, the House speaker and the Senate president. And now they have it all.

Long gone are the days when the appropriations committees had any input. Also vanished is the “budgeteers” system, when appropriations chairmen and experts from each caucus would sit down to hash out the budget’s details. Instead, all of the work now is being done by staff at the leaders’ absolute direction.

As a consequence, senators barely had any idea about what they were voting for last week when they approved a budget along party lines. The committee hearing before the vote provided precious few details and instead revolved around partisan bickering over a Democratic maneuver solely designed to embarrass the Republicans. Republicans repeatedly denounced the budget process as far too rushed and wholly untransparent, and they were right.

This was without a doubt the most top-down, opaque budget ever produced under the Statehouse dome. The Democrats and Republicans couldn’t even agree on whether spending increased or dropped next fiscal year because there was so little time to analyze the data, and the legislation itself is so obtuse that analysis was made extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The granting of the governor huge new budget powers in a different bill was at the root of that analysis problem. He’s supposed to make most of the cuts, and nobody really knows how much he actually will slash.

The legislation included a 5 percent reduction in personnel and operations lines, but Gov. Pat Quinn would be given the power to hold back even more spending and make major changes to state-mandated programs with the stroke of a pen. Nobody knows how far he will go, so it’s impossible to say just what the final spending level will be.

And then the stinking disaster moved to the House, where liberal independents were upset at the way things were going. Many wanted to see a vote on a tax hike; some wanted cuts. Almost nobody wanted to vote for anything.

The liberal independents were grumbling about “sending a message” by withholding their support, but even they would have to admit that nothing much will improve no matter how much more time they’d take and that things will only get worse for their cherished programs if the session went into overtime and the Republicans got a seat at the table.

There’s no way that a tax hike will pass this month. Even the lib indies had to comprehend that cold, hard fact. The House Democratic recalcitrants have proposed almost no cuts themselves and probably wouldn’t support many if they actually were on the table.

Stomping their feet and demanding they be delivered from this nightmare without coming up with a realistic, doable, passable alternative looked more like the actions of spoiled children who’ve been shielded from unpleasant realities all their lives more than like legislators. They let their big daddy (House Speaker Michael Madigan) run things all year without uttering a single word, and now he set the table with one of the most unpalatable spreads ever and they wanted to hold their breath until they turned blue. Nice timing.

Of course, the Republicans are no better. Several whined last week that recommendations from groups like the Illinois Policy Institute weren’t included in the Democratic budget plan. But not one person from that side of the aisle bothered to turn those budget ideas into an actual piece of legislation. The reason is obvious. Not even the Republicans were willing to go on record supporting such radical cuts.

Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) rightly pointed out last week that Republican gubernatorial candidate Sen. Bill Brady, of Bloomington, had introduced an appropriations bill at the beginning of the year. Instead of turning that bill into an alternative GOP budget, Brady gave up his sponsorship. The House Republican caucus proposed a little more than $5 billion in budget cutting “suggestions” earlier this year, but almost all of it was based on a ridiculous and fiscally impossible scheme to use nonexistent dollars from the capital construction plan to fund the budget. And when the House Republican higher-ups realized what they’d done, they backed away from it entirely.

What a mess this state is in.

* And your big budget bust-up roundup…

* Illinois’ lawmakers paralysis on budget driven by dysfunction, election: “It was another gimmicky bill that was hastily put together and designed to get us out of Springfield and give the governor unprecedented powers to spend (money) as he saw fit with little input from Democratic legislators,” complained Rep. Marlow Colvin, D- Chicago, former chairman of the House Black Caucus, echoing the unhappiness of other minority members. Another bloc of Democratic lawmakers, progressives, also complained that Quinn’s emphasis on maintaining adequate funding for education masked the need to improve human services funding, even though ensuring proper dollars for schools arguably plays better to independent and moderate suburban voters.

* State legislators leave Capitol at a standstill: State Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a Northbrook Democrat, said it would have been “premature” to rush a budget through this week when significantly more time remains for action. “We can always develop a better budget if we work a little bit more and get a little more input,” she said.

* Quinn: Ill. lawmakers ‘pretty close’ on budget: Gov. Pat Quinn said Saturday that lawmakers are “pretty close” to passing a new state budget but offered no explanation for his optimism or even why he now backs a budget that rejects his top legislative priority: a tax increase… “We’re pretty close,” Quinn said. “I think it’s healthy to have a robust debate and discussion this month on the budget, and ultimately they’ll be a vote, certainly before the end of the month.”

* Illinois Democrats Predict State Budget by June

* House fails to act on budget: The GOP’s choice for governor, state Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), said debt-heavy budget plans put before lawmakers Friday were the handiwork of “incompetence on the second floor,” referring to Quinn’s Statehouse office. “I will proudly take credit for stopping the Democrats from digging a deeper hole of debt, placing a burden on our children and grandchildren,” Brady said. “Someone’s got to stand up and be responsible.” Quinn shot back at Brady, accusing him of putting gubernatorial grandstanding ahead of the state’s neediest residents. “He wants to spend money, but he doesn’t want to vote for the funding. He was over here trying to cause chaos,” Quinn said, “and he’s not going to get away with it.”

* The blame game: “A year ago, we said to you, ‘Yes, we will participate in a borrowing plan,’” Cross said. “The problem of today versus a year ago is we said to the governor, ‘Governor, we’re going to give you a chance, we have a new governor, a fresh start, we have some problems.’” But Quinn didn’t live up to House Republicans’ expectations, Cross said. “Our governor needs to lead. Leaders lead. He needs to cut; he needs to control spending; he needs to pay his bills; he needs to provide for job growth and Medicaid reform.”

* Spineless in Springfield: They can’t do right thing

* Profiles in failure

* Our View: Lawmakers fail to set priorities, deal with problems

* Horse track slots plan hits snag

* Bill is still alive to bring slot machines to Fairmount, other Illinois tracks