40 Comments - flabergasted - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 6:33 am: I think I heard Gov. Quinn blame Bush for Illinois’ economy? Is this a wise tactic? - N'ville - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 7:25 am: If the deficit in Illinois had gone DOWN since Quinn became governor, he might have some credibility on the issue. It’s just the opposite. And on the income tax issue, it was hard to hear the Governor’s comments, but it sounded like he said something like Brady doesn’t believe in paying taxes. As far as I can tell, Brady paid the taxes that he owed, just like Quinn. Neither one of them made charitable contributions to the IRS. Who would? - South of the Loop - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 7:39 am: Quinn said we are still recovering from the recession from Bush. Brady did not say anything, he talks the talk and really gave no real insight. Quinn is talking about saving teachers positions, he sounds more like he is talking to the blue collar base. Cohen talks about $20K in toliet paper, also a huge expenditure for air freshenors for one department. But Cohen needs to look and see if this is one department (maintenance etc) supplying for the whole state, or part of it. He is throwing a lot of numbers out, but he needs to investigate behind the numbers. - wordslinger - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:00 am: Brady’s getting really good at saying nothing. “Cloak of Secrecy,” (is that like “The Cone of Silence”), transparency, deconstruct and reconstruct. It’s hilarious when he says that Quinn isn’t providing details. Scribbles on a bar napkin would be a major information dump on Brady’s budget plans. Think about this one for a while: He said Illinois needs to live within its means. He wants to cut some taxes, give out some tax credits, and not raise the income tax. And the federal aid is a bad idea. If you think the last couple of years have been a disaster, you ain’t seen nothing yet if he wins. It’s just dishonest and insulting. - VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:33 am: After listening to both, Brady comes off telling voters what is going to win in November. As long as reporters are asking Brady questions about our horrific economy, he ends up winning the debate. As long as reporters are asking Brady questions about Rod Blagojevich, Brady ends up winning the debate. As long as Brady is allowed to criticize Quinn without specifics and uses words voters are also using, Brady is going to win the debate. Brady wasn’t moving when he was being interviewed. So he came off easy to hear, was able to look focused on questions, and willing to answer questions. Quinn on the other hand, suffered from sound problems and was constantly walking which gave a poorer appearance. Quinn looked unfocused and unwilling to answer questions. Read that again - I am saying that he looked unwilling. Quinn needed to stop walking like Brady did and he would have ended up looking much better. Brady comes off much better here. - VanillaMan - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:41 am: Pat Quinn = instead of focusing on the failures of Rod Blagojevich over the past two years, you know, the guy whose TRIAL we are all discussing, and who was first mentioned by reporters during your parade walk - you bring up the guy who was president two years ago? Lame! The last two years in Illinois isn’t about BUSH, it is about Rod Blagojevich! - Ghost - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:44 am: Bah i want to hear Brady and Quinn explain why we dont have the dog show and lumber jack show at the fair! They should both have their campaigns kick in some cash to sponsor these. - Captain Illini - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:50 am: V-Man is spot on. Quinn speciously included the job loss numbers for President Obama for Bush, but the tactic is the same…blame the past for today’s failures, and take no responsibility for future loss. Pathetic. On the other hand, I’m still not convinced that a Brady win will translate into sound policy, but rather a deer in the headlights moment and a thought bubble that says, “Now what???” - shore - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:01 am: good column in the sun times. - DuPage Dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:06 am: The only answer to Quinn’s furlough policy for FY2011- take your furlough on payday. 24 furlough days, 24 paydays. At least it feels like you are getting paid. And you can read CapFaxBlog without the CMS computer police looking over your shoulder!! - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:07 am: Quinn was definitely on message and handled himself well. Makes you wonder what’s wrong in the campaign office, doesn’t it? One news point was that he said Rod shouldn’t have done it, whatever it is. Brady scores a good body blow on Quinn’s pay raises, countering the $900M budget cuts. Also got a good shot in on transparency. Living within means. Kirk was right (surprised he said that). Robert says it is a slow bleed for him.Join the crowd, Rob. It seems a pity to waste bits and bytes on SLC, wot? - grand old partisan - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:12 am: Yes, we are still living through a nation-wide economic downturn that started while Bush was President. But that doesn’t explain away Illinois’ uniquely precarious budget situation. Yes, pretty much every state is hurting, but not every state is hurting as bad as Illinois. Indiana, for example, wasn’t brought to crippling financial crisis by the Bush years, and it’s governor was a former budget advisor to Bush (imagine that!) - so how do you explain that, Governor? Your party has been running the show for 7 years - you can’t push all the blame for our woes on the feds. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:40 am: Did you know that 4 states have fully funded Educations programs and don’t need the Federal Bailout? Many other states were within striking distance of fully funded. Yet the Feds went ahead with a bailout anyway, and even with that money, Illinois is still in deep-doo-doo. Guess this is Bush’s fault, too. - Northside Bunker - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:52 am: Rob seems like a real smart guy, how in the world did he get sucked into Rod’s black hole. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 9:56 am: Did you know that 4 states have fully funded Educations programs and don’t need the Federal Bailout? Wow… 4 out of 50. That’s pretty good. Wait… 4 out of 50? And you are trying to make some point because 8% of states have their education system fully funded? - GA Watcher - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:01 am: Rich: Enjoyed your column in the S-T today. I think it begs a great QOTD for the blog: If you could draft anyone to run as an alternative to Bill Brady and Pat Quinn, who would that be? - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:09 am: Wow… just watched the Brady video. Brady is blatantly lying about several things: - The Jobs bill won’t raise the federal deficit, and to pretend otherwise is blatantly untrue. And he doesn’t know where the money is coming from? Then he doesn’t know anything about the bill. - We DO know exactly where Quinn spent (or is spending) the lump sum payments. - We DO know who “he” owes 4 or 5 billion too. - There wasn’t a second round of pay raises. Lots and lots of lies - pretty sad that no reporter is willing to call him out on it. And pretty sad that no reporter is willing to say, “How can you attack Quinn for no details (even though there are details) when you aren’t even willing to put forth ANY budget plan?” - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:16 am: I sure am trying to make a point, dave. We’ve been throwing BILLIONS at education, far in excess of the rate of inflation. Test scores have decreased since we’ve been doing it. Perhaps it is time to consider the efficacy of our current expenditures. Just throwing more money does not seem to work. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:18 am: # We’ve been throwing BILLIONS at education, far in excess of the rate of inflation. Test scores have decreased since we’ve been doing it. Perhaps it is time to consider the efficacy of our current expenditures. Just throwing more money does not seem to work. This all has absolutely nothing to do with your previous post. Just saying. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:20 am: And dave, to make the “PayGo” work required a lot of financing shenanigans, including massive cuts to food stamps, which were cynically chosen instead of other more wasteful projects since the Congress knew that it is politically impossible to not vote for food stamps where it probably would be impossible to get funding for a sidewalk to nowhere. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:23 am: @Cinci… regardless of what what happen in the future, the legislation simply didn’t increase the deficit. You can argue that future legislation may change that, but you can’t argue that the legislation increased the deficit, nor can you argue that the government is “printing money,” nor can you argue that “I don’t know where they are getting the money. Unless, of course, you know nothing about the bill. Brady is either blatantly lying, or knows nothing about what he is talking about. Not sure which is worse. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:31 am: it probably would be impossible to get funding for a sidewalk to nowhere. Nice talking point… but the sidewalks were replaced in order to meet ADA requirements. And the reporter did a lousy job figuring out why that one portion of the sidewalk ended where it did. - Ghost - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:31 am: === you could draft anyone to run as an alternative to Bill Brady and Pat Quinn, who would that be?=== Dillard. I am upset at Ryan for essentialy blocking Dillard. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:33 am: Really, dave? You don’t think that part of the education funding problem is the inflated expenditures we’ve been using for years? Each wasted dollar raises the baseline for the next year’s inflated. Some states have stood up and figured out how to make the system work. Obviously, most haven’t addressed this problem. Without researching the numbers, I’m sure Illinois is among the worst. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:40 am: You don’t think that part of the education funding problem is the inflated expenditures we’ve been using for years? I never said anything of the sort. I said that your point that 8% of states already had a fully funded education system has nothing to do with the fact that many education systems appear to not be working very well. What 4 states were already fully funded? - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 10:57 am: dave, ND, TN, AK, AR, have all managed to keep their education funding full. TX was excluded from receiving funds (at least on the bill I read) because they did not accept money from the first education bailout. The current bill requires the money to be used for salaries only, so the bill handcuffs the states from using the money for other reasons, like school maintenance or books. This whole bill is a sop to the teachers unions. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:01 am: This whole bill is a sop to the teachers unions. Again… nice talking point. Or it is a way to keep teachers’ jobs. Keeping people, especially teachers, working? A good thing. You might have more credibility if you didn’t just come in and spout GOP talking points. - Small Town Liberal - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:03 am: - This whole bill is a sop to the teachers unions. - Can you mix it up and use bribe or something once in a while? Sop is getting really annoying. And if preventing teachers from losing their jobs is a sop, then I’m not sure what wouldn’t qualify in your book. AK and TX get tons of money from oil and gas producers, so they don’t really compare to other states. - Kathy Posner - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:23 am: I had posted a comment earlier in support of Scott Lee Voehn. I do not work for Scott Lee and the comment was not inappropriate, rabid, a gratuitous insult or a rumor–so why was it deleted? - Small Town Liberal - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:33 am: - so why was it deleted? - Maybe there isn’t a candidate named Scott Lee Voehn. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:40 am: STL & dave, Wouldn’t the Bill have a bit more support as not being a sop/bribe/payout/buyout to the unions and their supporters just before a critical election where the majority party is going to take it in the shorts, if the schools were allowed to fill their budget holes as they see fit? Some schools may need books, some schoolroom may be falling apart. How is it in any form intellectually honest to think that some bureaucrat in Washington (or maybe even Springfield) knows how each school district in the country should use a bailout, or if they NEED it at all? If this bill were about the children, you’d set it up some other way other than to require its use for personnel. - steve schnorf - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 12:06 pm: C, if you have k-12 kids, don’t move them to TN unless you can get them into a magnet school or afford a private school. “Fully funded” clearly isn’t a synonym for “functional”. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 12:14 pm: steve schnorf, So the ONLY way TN can improve their education system is to throw more money at it, seems that has been tried over and over again. Howzit working? - steve schnorf - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 12:24 pm: C,I don’t remember saying that, and I don’t believe it. I’m shocked that you do. I simply make the point that fully funded and functional must not be synonymous. - Will County Woman - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 12:25 pm: When will the guv candidates debate? Sept or Oct or both? Provided quinn isn’t allowed to filibuster, ramble on and get off the subject, the debates should be good. - Small Town Liberal - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 1:10 pm: - I don’t remember saying that, and I don’t believe it. - Cinci has trouble making logical connections Steve. - Cincinnatus - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 2:25 pm: STL, No, I just try to read implications into a statement. But then again, I should remember that a cigar is sometimes just a cigar. - dave - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 8:30 pm: I just try to read implications into a statement. LOL. Let me correct that: I just try to read [what I want to read] into a statement [that says nothing of the sort]. - rick - Friday, Aug 13, 10 @ 11:17 pm: Quinn or Brady?? Oh My God Help Us - Carl - Monday, Aug 16, 10 @ 9:48 am: That is a great interview with Scott Lee Cohen, great job Patrick, We hear you may run for Mayor of Des Plaines. You got the support of the community. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.