40 Comments - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:03 pm: Campaign Mode with Governmental Problems. I’ve yet to recall a governor, so freely and so early in his term give away truth, honesty, and his word, to pretend to be engaged. I’ve also yet to recall a governor being optimistic about getting a budget 6 months after its past due, while having week upon week to engage. When Rauner said “January” , make no mistake, Rauner cares little about Social Service. Hey “Ounce of Prevention”, how January going to work for you? Pathetically sad, Bruce Rauner fails, doesn’t care, and wants us all to be “happy”… C’mon January. - Jack Stephens - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:04 pm: OW: What happens in January. JS - scholar athlete - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:06 pm: Still runnin’ and campaignin’ but not governin’. This dog and pony show, long on empty slogans but short on evidence, is gettin’ pretty stale. I keep pointing my channel remote at him but can’t change the channel. Oy… - Norseman - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:10 pm: Jack, lower vote requirements to pass bill with immediate effective date. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:12 pm: Rauner loses “17 needs” Goes back to 60 and 30, and Rauner probably feels, after food pantries for Thanksgiving and Christmas lay bare or closed, Diana’s beloved “Ounce” has a holiday party that Bruce tries to sell as him “reaching out”… After December, come January, Rauner will take Ken Dunkin and try to get 10 more “Dunkins” in the Senate, 12 more “Dunkins” in the House, then “fool” both… Madigan and Cullerton into roll calls… … See what I mean, how’s January looking? Looks the same, the goal posts are closer, but the Math still won’t add up, while “Ounce” and so many groups, and people suffer. January is a word of no meaning. Rauner coulda said “lunchbox” and it woukd mean the same a January. The Math changes, nothing else. - Stones - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:12 pm: Blah…blah…blah……. Same story, different venue. - Norseman - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:15 pm: I may still be thinking about the pipe dream, but I can’t help but wonder whether the powers that be are purposely waiting for January. Maybe they feel there is too much heavy lifting to reach 71 and 36. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:18 pm: ===…the powers that be are purposely waiting for January. Maybe they feel there is too much heavy lifting to reach 71 and 36.=== Completely agree. If I was a GOP GA member, understand… After December? There can’t be dispensation. All 67, you are Green, you’ll own the Rauner Tax Hike, passed and signed by Bruce Rauner, and MJM and Cullerton save 17 Dems. - AC - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:21 pm: Perhaps if he does the same thing but with more feeling, more emotion and more confidence it’ll work this time. I’m sure he really is negotiating with Madigan and Cullerton this time. Changing the length of the school day is exactly the same as removing everything else related to collective bargaining, got it. /s - Wensicia - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:21 pm: Mid-January? One year after the swearing-in ceremony and what will Rauner have to show for his efforts so far? A lot of people suffering from his cuts and even more debt. Complete incompetence as governor. - 360 Degree TurnAround - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:24 pm: It is nice to see he ironed his pants today. Who is paying the transportation costs for the Governor to go around the state, Comptroller Munger to go around the state tomorrow, to tell people we don’t have money? - Arthur Andersen - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:24 pm: OW, let’s hope the Wingman’s postage meter doesn’t run out before then. Thank the Lord for Direct a Deposit. - JS Mill - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:28 pm: =Rauner coulda said “lunchbox” and it woukd mean the same a January.= And that about sums it up. We could leave the discussion right there until something really changes and it would be nailed. Spot on OW. Spot. On. - sal-says - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:29 pm: Maybe he should have been working on it BEFORE HE closed it? - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:30 pm: - AA -, “It’s baloney. Just baloney. We’re hurtin’ just hurtin’ but postage, the people will be paid, they WILL be paid no matter what, and remember, Pat Quinn failed, but Speaker Madigan is to blame.” It’s jibberish I know, but that’s how the Rauner “Wacky Talk” Dice fell… - Mama - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:34 pm: “Rauner says his proposal to limit collective bargaining for government workers is not extreme.” I’d be willing to bet $100 that Rauner did not tell those people what he is demanding from the union. The news media needs to start publishing his demands. - Wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:34 pm: Why does he continue to say they are negotiating? The prevarications roll off the tongue very easily with this guy. - 360 Degree TurnAround - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:37 pm: I would disagree that it is incompetence. This is deliberate. He doesn’t believe government does anything except impede his investments and making friends more money. He believes the same of the unions, stopping him from making more money. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:38 pm: ===The news media needs to start publishing his demands.=== They won’t. The Statehouse Crew, that Press Pool, they do a good job, but when Mary Ann Ahern tweets a picture of Rauner’s car, the laziness of the “crack” NBC political crew is less “crack” and much more Keystone Kop. No help. Won’t happen. Thank goodness for Rich and the Statehouse Press Corps. - Liberty - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:41 pm: All the Democrats have to do is sit back and watch him implode. - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:41 pm: Reality? If in the 5 questions Rauner gets in local media, which one of those five can’t he laugh off? He laughs them all off. He only fears his own errors, not the questions. Why? Rauner has pretend answers at the ready, of course. (Hat tip to - JS Mill - - Mama - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:42 pm: The unions need to find a way to get the word out - statewide. - Buster - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:53 pm: A few more same-old-crap speeches and they won’t be able to wake the audience up after Rauner closes his mouth. More boring than a Madigan press conference. Give us a break and shut up and start acting like someone who cares. - Macbeth - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:25 pm: So essentially Rauner is killing time now. He has 2.5 months where he will do — essentially — nothing. He’ll wait it. Come 1 Jan, when it flips back to 60/30 — he’ll get back on it. Wonderful. Wins the Laziest Statesman Ever award. Pathetic. - Jorge - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:31 pm: Rauner did preside over and sign most of the decriminalization legislation. Just think how much he could have accomplished if he didn’t run around screaming right to work. What a waste. - RNUG - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:35 pm: Which January? - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:47 pm: I’ve yet to recall a governor Don’t give us any ideas, Willy! LOL - Oswego Willy - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:57 pm: - Six Degrees of Separation -, Ha! I see what you did there…. lol - Bulldog58 - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 6:09 pm: Same stale talking points… The sad part is that as long as he has an audience Emperor Nero will play his fiddle as Illinois burns. - walker - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 7:01 pm: – “structural change to get out of this deficit “– More misdirection by Rauner. We might need structural change for a lot of reasons, but what Rauner has proposed won’t get us out of this deficit. It could have some fiscal impact years out, but I’d defy anyone to prove a $6B per year impact of Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda items under any reasonable scenario. Hope he really isn’t buyin’ what he’s sayin’. That would make him foolish on the numbers. Agree that he might need to claim victory on some big piece of his Agenda, it in order to justify to his allies and constituents the tax increase his own numbers require. - Jack Stephens - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 7:36 pm: OW, Thanx! JS - Macbeth - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 8:13 pm: Sad thing is that despite this — and despite the fact that it will be a year without having done a thing — Rauner will win if he runs a second term. Pathetic. - foster brooks - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 8:23 pm: very small crowd - Hokey Horner - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 9:04 pm: If Rauner got what he says he wants, how would collective bargaining in IL stack up with current collective bargaining in Wisconsin? Because from this side (north) of the IL/WI border, the changes that were made haven’t exactly caused WI to implode, despite all the teeth-gnashing that occurred in Madison prior to their being voted in. All in all, things seem to be running along pretty smoothly up here, the limits on collective bargaining in the public realm seem pretty much invisible to most folks I’ve spoken with. - crazybleedingheart - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 9:22 pm: Why are all of Rauner’s jackets so much wider than his shoulders? He looks like a shrunken shell. I mention it because his pants aren’t wrinkled, so it’s possible he takes advice on tailoring issues. On all others, I give up. - XDNR - Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 11:12 pm: Same old insulting stump, at this point he has no choice because he is failing. Pathetic! - justthefacts - Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 12:23 am: ” the limits on collective bargaining in the public realm seem pretty much invisible to most folks I’ve spoken with.” Maybee most folks you have spoken with did not have a family in a public employee union? People wrongly convicted and sent to prison or executed are pretty much invisible to most of society too. I guess we shouldn’t worry about them either. - justthefacts - Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 12:28 am: ===The news media needs to start publishing his demands.=== Most of the media was in the bag for Rauner, he was perfect for their scheme to increase viewership with fellow travelers of Archie Bunker. Death Spiral! - Anonymous - Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 7:44 am: “I guess we shouldn’t worry about them either.” I don’t blame you for wanting to keep what you have, it’s only natural. But I think that state workers have an unrealistically bloated sense of their importance, they represent a small portion of the state’s population, and many of them, at least in the mind of voters, do not perform vital functions. Unchecked power in public workers (see the Chicago Teacher’s Union) has caused a lot of harm. I don’t want to see collective bargaining destroyed, but I can see in certain instanced (CPS for example) where it needs to be reined in drastically, the threat of “If we don’t get what we want, we’ll strike, and shut down the school year” goes against “But we’re only interested in the welfare of the kids”, don’t you think? Again, just one voter’s opinion. For instance, one of the changes made here was to eliminate tenure - now, as in private industry, if a teacher is doing a lousy job, they can be fired. You can’t tell me that eliminating a bad teacher is a bad thing. At least in my district, we now have an “opt-out” voucher system, where parents who elect to send their children to a private school (or home school) get back a fairly large percentage of the cost per year of what it would cost the district - the idea isn’t necessarily to save money, but it does just that, and greatly helps the parents. The teacher’s union hated that one, but it was a good decision. Chicago would benefit greatly from some of the same changes. - Flynn's mom - Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 1:36 pm: All I can hear is Charlie Brown’s teacher…wah wha wa wa wa wah wah wah ….. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.