45 Comments - Ducky LaMoore - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:35 am: Don’t tie budget to non budgetary items. Work in moderation. Blah blah blah blah blah. Are we supposed to expect something different? Please prove me wrong, Mike. - Lucky Pierre - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:43 am: He promised to work cooperatively and professionally with the Governor and work in moderation not the extreme on a combination of cuts and revenue. The appropriations bill that he ran through is in direct contradiction to that pledge on all counts. Live up to your promise Mr Speaker the time for politcal games is over. - ILPundit - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:46 am: Strikes me as a very big deal that Cullerton delivered the message at the meeting today that there will be no grand compromise. - Fusion - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:49 am: ==Republicans maintained that they’re very close to a bipartisan deal== Does “very close” still mean what I think it means? - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:49 am: Cullerton says no deal… When the “deal maker” can’t see a way… - steward - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:53 am: “incl action on employee healthcare” Wait, wut?!? - Hamlet's Ghost - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:55 am: @Lucky Pierre The appropriations bill that he ran through is an opening bid. Time for the Governor to file his own appropriations bill in response. - Hamlet's Ghost - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:56 am: Edit to correct: Time for the Governor to direct his GA leaders to file the Governor’s approved appropriations bill in response. - Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:56 am: No grand bargain with hostage takers. No surprise. Talk apples to apples something will happen. - AC - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:57 am: I’ll second the question from Steward. What’s this about employee healthcare as a new demand? - Macbeth - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:58 am: What’s the employee healthcare demand? I thought that was an AFSCME thing. Wait — are they trying to move healthcare out of collective bargaining? - Johnnie F. - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 9:59 am: So the Governor attempts and urges the Legislature to intervene in employee heathcare negotiations now, but earlier this week ripped into the Legislature for attempting to intervene in negotiations with HB580. - thunderspirit - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:00 am: If the two sides are, in fact, “very close to a bipartisan deal” and it has been scuttled by Speaker Madigan, that’s on him. If Governor Rauner did, in fact, inject “new demands, incl action on employee health care”, that’s on him. The truth is likely somewhere in between; but if had to bet, I know where my money would go. - steward - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:06 am: I remember waaaay back that Rauner wanted employee healthcare removed from collective bargaining so he could realize those millions in savings he built into the first budget regarding healthcare. First I’ve heard that it’s back as a new demand for the budget. - RNUG - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:07 am: == When the “deal maker” can’t see a way… == That is the ball game in a nutshell - Annonin' - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:07 am: Seems like the Cullerton proposal tubes the working groups, wrecks CPS and may interfere with all the BigBrain $5 million summer of hate speech. How will Katrina and other opinion writers cope with this development? - Jack Kemp - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:08 am: Hamlet’s Ghost, the Governor’s appropriations bills have been filed since February. Try again. - Rich Miller - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:08 am: ===First I’ve heard that it’s back=== It isn’t. Working group had devised a workaround. It had bipartisan support. Subscribe. - RNUG - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:11 am: RE healthcare, I obviously wasn’t there, but my guess is he wants to unilaterally and immediately impose the healthcare changes proposed in the AFSCME contract. People forget that the AFSCME healthcare is extended to all State workers and and also the schools / colleges / universities … plus all “state” retirees. That’s why it matters. - Norseman - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:14 am: === I’m told Senate President John Cullerton said at the meeting today that the two sides were too far apart to produce results by Tuesday === As others have said, this is the telling statement. Too bad the era of good feeling didn’t start earlier. - steward - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:16 am: Then what was McKinney saying? - Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:20 am: Inserting new “asks” this late in the process proves my theory. This governor will never, ever, sign a budget. “Shake up Springfield, may have to shut it down awhile.” He said what he meant and means what he said. - JS Mill - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:31 am: @RNUG- I think the AFSCME healthcare is offered to schools. Not many take it though, longstanding issues with state paying healthcare bills that most districts do not want to deal with as I understand it. We have our own insurance. - Nick Danger - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:33 am: Madigan = political calculus, always - Rich Miller - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:33 am: ===Inserting new “asks” this late in the process proves my theory=== That is exactly the opposite of what happened. - Birdseed - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:42 am: No new asks = Madigan was afraid his members were getting close to compromise = Pull plug. - wordslinger - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:43 am: –”They want to push the balanced budget reforms off until the fall, after the election.” What “balanced budget reforms” is Sen. Radgno talking about? Or is that just random produce that came out of the word-salad shooter? Just bizarre. If all this great progress is being made behind closed doors, why not inform the public as to the details? Or the broad strokes, even? Seems to me the p.r. advantage would be enormous. Nothing’s real until it’s in public and people will put their names to it. Academic exercises in problem-solving are not necessarily progress until someone steps up. If I recall, the governor assured everyone, repeatedly, in Spring 2015 that great progress was being made in the behind-doors working groups. What were the results of all that great progress? It’s what you do, not what you say. - cassandra - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:45 am: I did wonder what Rauner was going to be doing for two years if he agreed to a tax increase and dropped most or all of his business agenda. Two years of cutting ribbons and kissing babies? Doesn’t seem like him. I hope he releases the partial social service funding and sweeps every other fund he can reasonably sweep to mitigate the continuing crunch. And, as a member of the country’s shrinking middle class, I’m glad my taxes apparently won’t go up just yet. - @MisterJayEm - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:48 am: “I’m sorry, we’re just too far apart.” “No! We’re so very close to a deal!” “Are you kidding? There’s no deal and we’ve already given you almost everything you want.” “Yes, ‘almost everything’. See? We’re so close to a deal!” “…” – MrJM - Sue - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:50 am: Now onto the ILRB and an impasse/implementation and call it a day - Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:50 am: Why doesn’t the Governor introduce a budget bill just for education funding to keep schools open. Let Madigan kill it if he wants, and everyone will know who caused the education meltdown. - burbanite - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:56 am: The Governor could have injected what is perceived as a new ask in the meeting today. I don’t know that he didn’t. He doesn’t always think before he talks so he may have not even realizing it, you never know. I wish they taped these mtgs, no one ever seems to agree on what happens in them. - Thoughts Matter - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:58 am: Say what you will Madigan passed a budget that covered the needs of the most amount of citizens of the state with the least damage to those least able to live thru it. Taxpayers would bear the brunt of it. That’s the way it works. Those of you thinking ‘ not paying for anyone but me’ are getting ready to see what that looks like - and you will find out just exactly what services you really DO want the state to pay for, I bet you or your family or friends will be affected more than you think. - Grandson of Man - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 10:59 am: I’m very sorry to see this happening. So many are suffering and will suffer much more if nothing is done. I admit I don’t know much about workers comp, but if businesses are complaining about costs and are citing reform as very important in decisions of location, that’s an area where there could be compromise. We can get a property tax freeze without potentially taking away workers’ rights to bargain over wages. That would create double standards among government employees, because state workers would have the right to bargain over wages but local government workers might not. It would also put workers at a long-term disadvantage compared to the super-high earners, who would get hit with the same flat income state tax increase as everyone else and not be compelled to shoulder more of the burden than anyone else. Meanwhile workers could have long-term inability to bargain over something as important as wages. - Cassandra - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 11:14 am: I figured out that my family would probably save more from a property tax freeze than from a decision not to increase the state’s flat income tax. But I live in a high property tax area. Not sure how it would work out generally for middle class earners. But our plight is real. Some of those leaving the middle class are, indeed, moving up-nationally the percentage of high earners is increasing-they will feel an income tax increase less. So the flat tax becomes more regressive if this trend continues. Our state political leaders really need to address this. Because income inequality seems to be the country’s future. - Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 11:30 am: So did they or didn’t they reach an impasse? And who declared it? Can the Labor Relations Board help answer that? /s - Huh? - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 12:14 pm: Sign on the door over Madigan’s shoulder “Where deals and budgets go to die”. - Formerly Known As... - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 12:19 pm: Speaker Madigan’s comment: Mission Accomplished. Bi-partisan talks and any immediate compromise have been successfully scuttled. - Formerly Known As... - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 12:40 pm: ==He said what he meant and means what he said.== =“I don’t necessarily agree with the first part of your remarks, that in the end this will be negotiated between the governor, and the leaders. I don’t necessarily agree with that,” Madigan said. He later added, “(T)here are conversations going on but I don’t think you should proceed under any presumptions that are based upon what happened in the past… I don’t necessarily presume that there will be some kind of a deal put together between the governor and the legislative leaders.”= Mike Madigan July 17 2015 Indeed. He said what he meant, and means what he said. He decided last year. No compromise. No reforms. No alternatives. No change. No progress. - X-prof - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 1:11 pm: Cassandra === I figured out that my family would probably save more from a property tax freeze than from a decision not to increase the state’s flat income tax. === Your calculations are correct, and they would work out similarly for most IL taxpayers. Your tax expense in sales and property taxes (both regressive) are greater than your expense from our low, flat income tax (t’s neutral, neither regressive nor progressive). Overall, ours is one of the most regressive tax systems in the country because it lacks a graduated income tax to counteract the other regressive taxes AND because our flat income tax is unusually low (this forces the regressive property and sales taxes to be heavier than in most states). One short-term fix is to raise the flat income tax rate in return for a freeze, or even a reduction, in property and sales taxe rates. Longer term, we need a constitutional amendment to allow a graduated income tax in line with those in most other states to make our system less regressive. Available data indicates that these changes need not hurt the state’s economy; in fact, there is considerable evidence to the contrary. - Ahoy! - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 1:38 pm: –Madigan, for his part, defended the spending plan that he pushed through his chamber, saying it was “a bill that will provide no hostage-taking.”– No hostages (except taxpayers) just more than $7 billion in accounted for spending. I have trouble wrapping my mind around this kind of logic, the money is not there, just because you appropriate it does not make it magically appear. While we’re at it, let’s make unicorns the official horse of Illinois. - Nick - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 2:47 pm: I’m confused. How can things be pushed off until after the November elections unless they come to an agreement on say a 6-month budget? Schools have to open before November. - Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 4:13 pm: @ Sue Please start offering solutions for once instead of constantly complaining. I am so sorry you are having such a bad day and have to take it out on everyone else that disagrees with you. - Union Man - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 4:14 pm: Rauner is the Problem. - Formerly Known As... - Friday, May 27, 16 @ 4:16 pm: =We’re not going to hold hostage people that need education= Except for when we hold them hostage to reform the funding formula. But that’s different. /s Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.