Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s top City Council ally on Tuesday said Gov. Bruce Rauner’s political inexperience and his background in business are complicating matters as the first-term governor tries to reach agreement with the “tremendously experienced” Democrats who control both legislative branches in Springfield. […]
“One of the things Harry Truman said about businessmen when they go into politics… he said the difficulty with businessmen entering politics after they’ve had successful business careers is that they want to start at the top,” O’Connor said in a reference to Rauner’s time in private equity before he ran for governor. “And sometimes government needs a learning curve. Sometimes it’s not as easy as it looks. And sometimes, just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” […]
“And so we’ve got a very inexperienced group in the governor’s office against a tremendously experienced group in the House and the Senate, two individuals who over the course of the last year-and-a-half have been vilified, called names, basically portrayed as evil, corrupt individuals. And now we expect them all to sit down at the table and get along, and put it all behind them and solve our problem. It’s a daunting task,” he said. “And so, for the people who think about ‘Why can’t they just get on with it,’ they’re all human and they’ve all come off a campaign that essentially just tried to eviscerate each other.”
“I would hope both sides don’t escalate their attacks. I’m happy I haven’t seen any advertisements and I hope the Democrats stop sending their mailers. I’m not sure either side is going to scare the other side into an agreement.
“I’ve been in a lot of battles and, a year later, you can’t even remember what they were,” he said. “You get caught up in these things. Keep your eye on the bigger picture. We have to have an adequate budget, which we haven’t had for a long time.”
* OK, but Gov. Rauner just told reporters that Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton make money off their property tax law practices which is a “conflict of interest” because they make more money when property taxes are high. He claimed Madigan makes “millions” off of high property taxes and Cullerton makes his “wealth” off of “government inside deals.”
You gotta wonder if Rauner had the stones to tell that to Cullerton’s face when the two met earlier today.
Just a thought, but perhaps Edgar ought to make his “calm down” case directly to the governor himself, because it isn’t what I’m hearing that Edgar has actually been saying.
An Illinois House member has returned fire in what Gov. Bruce Rauner’s staff calls Democrats’ “sexist smear campaign” against the administration’s education adviser.
Chicago Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz told colleagues on a House appropriations committee Tuesday that the Republican governor’s proposed cuts in daycare services are “ultimately the biggest act of sexism.”
Rauner representatives labeled Democrats sexist last week when the committee reviewed the $250,000-a-year contract for education czar Beth Purvis. It’s funded by the Department of Human Services’ budget — a target of Rauner spending cuts.
If there is indeed a government shutdown, however large or small that is, that’s what taking on the Illinois political machine looks like. The long-term benefits of enacting Rauner’s reform agenda far outweigh any short-term impact of a temporary government shutdown.
Voters sent Rauner to Springfield to “shake things up.” If Illinois wants to break away from the downward spiral it’s on, “shutting things down” might be the price we need to pay.
When Minnesota state government shut down in 2011, as much as 80 percent of the government continued to operate. […]
If it happens in Illinois, the usual crew will be taken care of: Under state law, politicians, pensioners and government workers will still collect paychecks. No wonder Illinoisans are so jaded about state politics.
Minnesota missed its budget deadline by only 20 days. That’s nothing compared to what could happen here if the players engage in the full-blown war that Rickert so desires.
Also, state workers here won’t collect paychecks unless they get a judicial order. Come August, however, when the school aid payment doesn’t go out and schools announce they can’t afford to open their doors, you’re gonna hear some serious screaming.
* Kristen McQueary goes a bit overboard in her warning of what could happen with a possible AFSCME strike, but perhaps Ms. Rickert should read it anyway in the context of her own confident war-mongering…
You’ll start squawking when your elderly neighbor’s home care worker doesn’t show up or the state park reserved for your daughter’s wedding gets closed. If unionized workers in the secretary of state’s office honor their striking comrades in AFSCME, you’ll have second thoughts when your driver’s license expires or your teenager needs a driver’s permit.
You won’t have much patience for a strike when the Thompson Center closes or the state election board stops answering the phone or your kid’s university shuts down. You might reconsider Rauner’s tough stance with AFSCME when you can’t get your professional license renewed or your tax return processed.
And of course there are more serious consequences to a strike. How would it affect caseworkers at the Department of Children and Family Services who check on children suspected of being abused? What about severely disabled children and adults who rely on state-employed health care professionals? What about the essential providers — addiction centers and day care centers and juvenile homes — that can barely keep their doors open, waiting for reimbursement from the state? If the state shuts down, all bets are off.
There are no-strike clauses in state government, so there will be no sympathy strikes at the SoS. But those offices could very well shut down during a state budget impasse.
And the universities won’t be impacted by an AFSCME strike, either, and state support is only a small portion of their income, so I doubt any will close their doors anytime soon during a shutdown.
Still, the rest of it is mostly plausible, and not at all pleasant.
The Democrats’ $36.3 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in July avoids about $5 billion in cuts Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed. Madigan said the Legislature is committed to “work with the governor” to raise the funds needed to protect vulnerable residents.
Here’s the problem: Illinois residents aren’t interested in Democrats working with the Republican governor on ways to raise funds, which is a nicer way of saying, “Raise taxes.” […]
If Illinois residents wanted more of the same, they would have voted for Pat Quinn in November. They didn’t. They voted for Rauner, who promised smaller government and to run the state like a business.
We can’t trust lawmakers with more money. Last time we gave lawmakers more money after a shady, lame-duck vote to raise taxes, they didn’t use the money the way they promised.
Illinois needs to examine spending, not look at ways to find more money so it can spend more money.
OK, first of all, that $5 billion appears to include Rauner’s phony $2.2 billion in savings from shorting the pension funds. Most of the rest can’t be done without significant change to state statutes, like the nearly $800 million he would save by taking health insurance out of the collective bargaining process.
* Secondly, and more importantly, the governor has repeatedly said that he is quite willing to raise taxes if he gets his Turnaround Agenda passed. He offered a one-point income tax increase, which would yield $3.5 billion and take us up to 4.75 percent.
He’s also repeatedly floated the idea of a service tax, which would likely be used to fund a capital bill. The satellite TV tax is also apparently in the mix for that same purpose.
So, all the editorial boards cheering the governor for opposing a tax hike might want to keep in mind that he’s not actually with their program.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner told the leadership at the Hardin County Work Camp to prepare for imminent closure despite the fact that the prisoners provide food to local food banks, and cheap labor to local communities. […[
“I don’t want to cut,” Rauner said. “I don’t want to close facilities. I don’t want to do that at all. Madigan and Cullerton have caused this by their financial mismanagement and we’re going to fix it.”
* And thirdly, the governor’s original budget was pretty darned ham-handed, as Zorn explained recently…
Yes, he released a budget document in February. It contained controversial and, to some, alarming cuts to mass transit, higher education, local governments, human service and Medicaid as part of his effort to make up a roughly $6 billion anticipated shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
It’s hard enough when one side isn’t bringing to the table a tangential set of supposedly non-negotiable demands.
I won’t pretend here to catch the vapors over the very idea of a politician using leverage in one area to extract policy concessions in another, but really? Is Gov. Rauner really planning to hold our state’s most vulnerable citizens hostage until he’s able to check a few items off his broader agenda? Does he really think he has a popular mandate to try to impose dramatic cuts in programs and services if he doesn’t get his way on workers’ comp and property taxes?
Maybe so. But before you fit him for his white hat, you ought to find out what those cuts will look like. Or, since he’s unlikely to say, you ought to at least try to imagine.
Do you remember your first serious crush? You couldn’t think straight, and your tongue got so thick you could hardly get a sentence out without coughing and clearing your throat. It’s sort of the way the Tribune has sounded since it swooned over Bruce Rauner.
And if you’re not blushing and gasping in the throes of adolescent ardor, you’re blurting out besotted hyperboles.
“Mostly they want to scare you, then break you,” said the lovestruck editorial page on May 29, speaking directly to the governor. “You don’t seem fazed . . . . You come across as a patient man. . . . You also come across as a focused man. A governor who won’t flinch . . . . The crony-coddlers in Springfield—and their loyalists who live off state spending—finally have met someone they don’t frighten . . . . You, Governor, are free to keep calm and stand pat. How liberating to answer only to the voters who sent you.”
It was an editorial that might have ended, “Take me.”
* I wouldn’t be too sure that these things are necessarily connected…
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration has extended the contract of one if its top-paid consultants, Donna Arduin, but is cutting her $30,000-a-month fee in half, following increased scrutiny over a governor’s office practice of paying top dollar to appointees while threatening to slash state services.
The move comes after an Illinois House committee held a hearing last week reviewing why another top appointee, education secretary Beth Purvis, was drawing her $250,000 salary out of the Department of Human Services, rather than the governor’s office budget. That same committee has called on Purvis to appear for testimony on Tuesday, said state Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago. Harris could not yet say whether she would attend.
“Her compensation has been reduced by half from her previous contract and will terminate when the final budget is signed or on August 28, whichever comes first,” according to a statement from the governor’s office.
Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said Monday he hasn’t changed his view that a property tax freeze should only be discussed in conjunction with school funding reform — to ensure that school districts aren’t handcuffed by having their principal source of revenue frozen.
“Senate Democrats for weeks now have been willing to negotiate with Gov. Rauner on a property tax freeze, provided his willingness to discuss reforming school funding in the state, because the two go hand-in-hand,” Manar said. “So far the governor has been just summarily dismissive of that idea. It would be irresponsible to proceed as the governor suggested without taking into consideration the financial plight of hundreds of school districts in the state today.”
The Rauner administration says Manar is under the control of House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, both Chicago Democrats.
“Everyone in Illinois knows that property taxes are too high, and the governor will continue to fight for a property tax freeze,” spokesman Lance Trover said. “Rather than finding excuses to block a property tax freeze, we urge Madigan-Cullerton Democrats like Andy Manar to support a property tax freeze and work with Governor Rauner to increase funding to public education.”
* Text message from a trusted friend…
Just got an IVR poll. Direction of Illinois. Support MJM plan to raise taxes. Support Rauner plan to balance budget and hold line on taxes. Do you support [Rep. Stephanie] Kifowit even though she votes with MJM? Would you support a different candidate? Do you always vote party line or do you vote independently?
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
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A southern Illinois speech meant to build public support for Gov. Bruce Rauner’s legislative agenda amid a budget impasse with majority Democratic lawmakers instead turned into a test of the first-term Republican’s ability to stay on message, as he faced a flurry of taunts from union protesters.
Sign-carrying members of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 309 in Collinsville and the Caseyville-based Steamfitters Local 439 repeatedly interrupted Rauner’s nine-minute pitch at Eckert’s Country Store and Farm. The St. Clair County rally Monday afternoon followed a similar event earlier in the day in Marion. […]
“This is going to be a rough summer,” [Rauner] told reporters after the rally, during which he repeatedly laid fault for the impasse with the “Chicago political machine,” a reference that drew the event’s loudest cheers of support. “They’ve just not negotiated in good faith. We need bipartisan compromise.”
I think this was the first time since the campaign ended that union protesters have booed the governor.
When Rauner met with reporters after the speech, he repeated a warning he’s been giving a lot lately: Get ready for “a rough summer.”
“We’ve got to get the power away from (Madigan and Cullerton). They’re not going to give it up easily, this is going to be a rough summer,” Rauner said. “We’re going to negotiate in good faith. We have been for months. We want bipartisan agreement.”
“It’s going to be a number of weeks” before a deal is made, but Rauner said he wants to avoid a state government shutdown. But he said his office is “making contingency plans” anyway since none of the budget bills the General Assembly passed have been delivered to his desk.
A mix of cheers and boos among about 200 people greeted Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday in Marion.
Both Mayor Robert Butler, as he introduced the Republican governor, and Rauner himself noted Democracy at work in response to the split crowd.
Many who turned out for the appearance at Black Diamond Harley-Davidson were union members with signs calling Rauner bad for Illinois and for jobs. Pro-Rauner signs carried a contrary message.
Rauner, when asked later about the protesters, characterized them as partisan supporters of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and Democratic Senate President John Cullerton.
“There are folks who, the status quo is good to them, and they’re loyal to Madigan, they’ve got a relationship there,” said Rauner. “The reality is, working families in this state are suffering. Suffering … Madigan and Cullerton aren’t for working families. They’re for the political class.”
