* Another way [Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich] has been trying to hurt House Democratic chances this November is by claiming there’s a “secret” plan to raise income taxes after the election…
An after-Halloween trick could be up Mike Madigan’s sleeve. Governor Blagojevich is suggesting the speaker of the Illinois House is secretly pushing for an increase in the income tax, sales tax, or both after the November election.
There’s a gigantic difference now, however. Blagojevich didn’t spend millions of dollars attempting to burn that message in because he was preoccupied with his own reelection [duh - he wasn’t up that year] and nobody in the Democratic Party would give him that kind of money to do something like that.
Also, Madigan just wasn’t as well-known (or as widely disliked) back then as he is today.
Governor Bruce Rauner today announced appointments to the State Board of Health and Workforce Investment Board. In addition, Jennifer Hammer has been named Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, as Aaron Winters transitions out of the Administration. […]
Jennifer Walsh Hammer has been named Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Hammer brings years of experience in Illinois policy and private practice to the position. She is currently Special Counsel to the Governor and the Healthcare and Human Services Policy Adviser.
Previously, Hammer was the Executive Director of the Healthcare Council and Legal Counsel for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. Hammer is also an attorney and has spent a significant amount time in private practice at Giffin, Winning, Cohen & Bodewes.
In addition, Hammer is a former two-term elected Governor on the Illinois State Bar Association Board of Governors. She was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to the Board of Character and Fitness. She is also a past President of the Central Illinois Women’s Bar Association and the Junior League of Springfield. She is the Second Vice President of the Sangamon County Bar Association and a board member of the City of Springfield Community Relations Commission.
Hammer earned her bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University and law degree from Southern Illinois University. She lives in Springfield.
* I truly love me some Aaron Winters and I’m really sorry to see him go. Aaron is one of those rare beings: a smart wonk with a pleasant personality. People always smile when he walks into a room, even when he’s bringing bad news.
Needless to say, his job hasn’t been easy. But as a good friend of mine said last year, “If anybody can get us a deal, Winters can.” Unfortunately, no deal was to be gotten. I don’t put that on him. At all.
I’m not sure what he’s doing next, but he’ll be good at it. Count on it.
Arrogant politicians are gambling that, come November, Illinois voters who usually vote for familiar names won’t rebel against incumbent legislators. But given how shabbily majority Democrats once again have treated the citizens who pay their salaries, we wonder if many of the incumbents risk being replaced.
Now the leaders are in scramble mode. They don’t want voters to focus on the odds that schools will or won’t open this fall. Rather than earn their salaries (and, yes, their eventual public pensions) by balancing a budget and pointing Illinois’ economy toward growth, incumbents are focused on the election. They want it over.
Don’t be surprised if they cut a half-year deal and boast for the cameras that they did something big. They’ll blame and spin and preen like peacemakers, then explain in great fogs of detail why this was the best they could do. Heroes, all.
A half-year budget is better than none, we suppose, but not by much. It creates no sense of stability for people who rely on state spending. It creates no incentive for tax-wary employers to locate or hire here. It creates nothing but more slack time for lawmakers to collect salaries, month after unproductive month — their many paid vacations included.
Hmm. No mention at all of who is pushing hardest for a temporary budget deal: Gov. Rauner.
* But, what if Speaker Madigan decides he isn’t for a temporary budget? Those two constituent newsletters put out by his members that we discussed earlier today could give us a clue about MJM’s intentions. For instance…
Not only are we working to stop devastating cuts to social and public services but the University of Illinois is also being targeted. The Governor’s budget proposal would provide the U of I just 30% of the funding it needs for the next 18 months to the institution that educates over half of all public higher education students in the state of Illinois.
Some of the governor’s people believe this 30 percent number refers to Rauner’s stopgap budget proposal. And, as subscribers know, Madigan has only said so far that he is willing to support a stopgap for this fiscal year, not the next one which starts July 1st.
*** UPDATE *** I kid you not, the Illinois Republican Party just e-mailed that Tribune editorial around to reporters and actually used the excerpt about the temporary budget that their own party leader is supporting. Check it out.
Through the entire 2016 cycle, the outside spending on [US Sen. Mark Kirk’s] behalf represents just a fraction of the total money spent on GOP incumbents, and significantly lags behind the amount spent to back his colleagues in tough races. And as groups strategize and lock in future spending, so far there appear to be no plans to put big money behind the Illinois lawmaker’s re-election campaign against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.
For some of these Republican groups, it’s a simple calculation: Illinois is a deeply blue state in presidential election years, and with so many other competitive races in battleground states, investing there may not be the best use of resources.
“It is an enormously difficult state to be a Republican running statewide in a presidential year,” said one party operative who works for an outside group and who requested anonymity to discuss strategy. “I think you could bring Abraham Lincoln back from the dead to try for the Senate seat and he would have trouble in 2016, or he would be a decided underdog in 2016.”
RCP says $1.1 million has been spent so far, split about down the middle, compared to $13 million in Ohio and $8 million in Pennsylvania.
Kirk’s campaign pushed back on the narrative there has been a lack of investment in his re-election. Eleni Demertzis, a spokeswoman for Kirk, said in a statement to RCP that Duckworth will be badly damaged by a trial in August at which she faces accusations of misconduct from her time leading the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. Demertzis said if anyone would be expected to spend outside money in the race, it would be Democrats backing Duckworth ahead of the trial, and she suggested the lack of GOP outside money is because Kirk faces a flawed Democratic opponent.
They sure are putting an awful lot of hope into the outcome of that Duckworth trial.
A new poll commissioned by Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign shows that a majority of Illinoisans think Rep. Tammy Duckworth should have to testify in an August trial related to a workplace retaliation lawsuit stemming from her time as Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to the GS Strategy Group poll of 600 likely Illinois voters, 63 percent of respondents said Duckworth should have to testify “because she was a state employee as the head of the VA, and Illinois voters deserve to know the truth behind her actions.” 17 percent of respondents said it’s Duckworth’s “right to not have to testify in this trial.” […]
“Rod Blagojevich refused to take the stand in court,” Artl added. “Will Rep. Duckworth follow her former boss’s legal strategy?”
Strapped for cash as a result of Illinois’ year-long budget logjam, Champaign County’s mental and behavioral health agency Community Elements is being forced to make deep cuts in two programs serving homeless men and troubled youths.
The agency will close its Roundhouse residential facility for youth on June 10 and will shut down the remainder of the level 1 program at its TIMES Center for homeless men in transition on June 30, according to CEO Sheila Ferguson. […]
To help save money, Community Elements already cut level 1 at the TIMES Center in January from 50 beds to 25 and reduced staffing by 12 jobs, six of them full-time.
• Illinois ranks 28th among the 50 states and District of Columbia in per-capita state and local spending, according to 2012 data, the most recent available, compiled by the Tax Policy Center.
• Illinois ranks 38th in state-only per-capita spending, according to Fiscal Year 2014 data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• Illinois ranks 28th in per-capita combined spending on education, health care, human services and public safety — the core services that make up 90 percent of state budgets — and 36th if you calculate that spending as a share of our gross domestic product, according to an analysis of fiscal year 2012 data by Chicago’s Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.
• Illinois ranks 45th in overall state spending as a share of GDP according to a analysis of 2014 data by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
• Illinois ranks 49th in Medicaid spending per enrollee in a 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation report.
• Illinois ranks 23rd in the state taxes collected as a percentage of personal income and 15th in state taxes collected per capita, according to 2014 data compiled by the Federation of Tax Administrators.
• Illinois has the second-lowest state income tax rate among the eight states that levy a flat tax, and top earners in 38 states pay more state income tax than top earners in Illinois, according to 2016 charts published by the Federation of Tax Administrators.
Now, there are some important things to remember here. One is that relatively low state spending on K-12 is a serious driver of local property tax hikes. Another is that total state and local taxation is about the highest in the country. And while we do spend much less on Medicaid per enrollee, that comes at the cost of providers refusing to take Medicaid patients.
But, hey, even the governor recognizes that we have a very real state revenue problem. He isn’t pushing deep spending cuts at the state level, despite what you may read elsewhere. He wants economic reforms tied mainly to big state tax hikes and a local property tax freeze.
After years of watching the failed policies of leading Democrats in this state, from disastrous financial mismanagement to inauthentic attempts at social justice policy, I stopped voting Democratic. I charged in the opposite direction. I have not looked back.
She most certainly did charge in the opposite direction. Props for full disclosure there.
* And she has a long list of indisputably valid, spot-on criticisms of her former party…
For those who still espouse the economic and social ideals of the left, consider the failure of Democratic leaders and lawmakers in Springfield to enact the change you believe in. The Democratic-supermajority General Assembly adjourned the spring legislative session once again without passing school funding reform. Without approving an elected school board for Chicago. Without advancing a graduated income tax. Without enforcing a higher minimum wage.
All true. She goes into more detail on each issue and she’s absolutely right. The party’s legislative leaders pay mere lip service to a whole host of progressive causes, but don’t actually get anything accomplished on them.
* While her criticisms are totally legit, the tell is in her closing argument…
If you tend to vote Democrat, do some soul-searching before November. Your party is failing you. It is failing all of us. Your leaders are playing you for fools.
Stop getting played.
There’s zero doubt that if you’re a progressive Democrat, you are getting played on lots of issues near and dear to your heart. But what are all those liberals supposed to do come November? Vote Republican? Hardly.
The answer instead is: “Stay home.” Pieces like these are designed to depress the other side’s base. Both sides regularly do it and we’ll see a whole lot more of it before election day, as we always do. The difference is this one is quite well-written.
* While the Radogno quote doesn’t really suggest compromise, I am told that a middle-ground figure could be reached on K-12 spending if people put their minds to it…
Rauner’s proposal included only $220 million more for schools statewide—a fraction of the $900 million figure that was in bills that separately passed the House and the Senate. Roughly half of that money would have gone to Chicago Public Schools, and CPS chief Forrest Claypool says he needs all of it to put toward an anticipated $1 billion deficit in the upcoming school year.
“We need this stability, and not this strategy of pitting region against region,” Claypool told me, referring to Rauner’s suggestion that Democrats just are trying to wire “a bailout” of CPS.
Insiders suggest to me that Rauner is prepared to raise his schools figure as part of a deal on an interim budget. “There’s a big difference” between what Democrats want and what Rauner currently is proposing, says Radogno, clearly suggesting that a bargain is doable.
The problem is all this GOP thundering about how they won’t back a CPS bailout. The governor is letting the Republicans (and himself) get way out over their skis on this issue.
The logical and humane choice here would be to split the difference, put an additional $500 million or so into K-12, including some help for Chicago, and call it a day.
Wartime footings are not conducive to logic and humanity, however.
The most pressing financial concern for CPS is a $676 million payment to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund due on June 30.
CPS has no choice but to make that payment in full, whether Springfield rides to the rescue or not. […]
But after making that payment in full, CPS will have just $24 million left in the bank. That’s enough to cover just 1.5 days of payroll.
Because property tax revenues won’t start rolling in until early to mid-August, that means CPS would essentially be forced to operate “bone-dry” through the month of July.
And that’s probably just the position where the governor wants CPS.
All this murmuring by Democrats about how Rauner will cave on his Turnaround Agenda once stuff starts shutting down ignores the fact that he has put constant fiscal pressure on CPS since he took office. A shutdown would play right into his hands.
But Madigan’s side points to Rauner’s ever-tanking poll ratings as proof they can use him against Republican candidates, and they’ll toss in Trump wherever the presidential candidate is unpopular.
And while voters always say they want a balanced budget, they almost always recoil when told what that would actually entail. Details of the $7.5 billion in cuts that “the Trump/Rauner Republicans demanded” via the governor’s expected veto will make for some grisly campaign advertisements. The Senate Democrats did pretty much just that to the Republicans during the last presidential campaign cycle and picked up seats despite raising the income tax by 67 percent—which is a big reason why the governor has now twice refused to submit a truly balanced budget. Once the Republicans vote against overriding Rauner’s budget veto for the second year in a row, they’ll be on the record for huge cuts.
* So, if you want a probable preview of the fall campaign (perhaps without all the Urbana-friendly talk about revenues other than those on the rich), check out Democratic state Rep. Carol Ammons’ e-mail to constituents…
Dear Friend,
I know that you are frustrated and disheartened that we have passed another deadline without a state budget. I am too.
It is outrageous that Illinois has gone almost a full year without a state budget. Never before in our state’s history have we gone this long without a budget. We must take action to restore stability for those who rely on the state to meet our basic obligations.
For nearly a year, the governor has held the state hostage refusing to sign or even negotiate a state budget unless he gets his way on a special interest agenda that benefits big corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
The governor has proposed closing the state’s $5 billion deficit exclusively through cuts to essential services for families, children, and the elderly. The governor’s budget would slash critical funding for basic services, including:
* life saving medical care for the elderly and persons with disabilities covered by Medicaid;
* critical health services for women, including life saving breast cancer screenings;
* services for developmentally disabled children;
* services for abused and neglected children;
* and mental health services for thousands of patients who otherwise turn to emergency rooms for care.
Nurses, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, and patients strongly support our approach and oppose the governor’s extreme cuts-only budget which would hurt families, children, and the elderly while protecting the ultra rich.
Additionally, the governor’s budget would put public safety at risk as massive cuts to local government will force communities across the state to lay off police officers and firefighters, close stations, and cut back patrols.
Not only are we working to stop devastating cuts to social and public services but the University of Illinois is also being targeted. The Governor’s budget proposal would provide the U of I just 30% of the funding it needs for the next 18 months to the institution that educates over half of all public higher education students in the state of Illinois. The University contributes $14 billion to the state economy and employs 30,000 people statewide. The University needs stable and consistent funding and I will strongly defend against all attempts to erode the foundation of one of our most valuable state institutions.
I oppose the governor’s extreme, cuts-only approach.
I support balancing the budget while protecting essential services by balancing spending cuts with asking big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share. Specifically, closing corporate tax loopholes and increasing tax rates on households with income of over $1 million a year. In order to truly move Illinois to a better place financially, all revenue options have to be on the table. However, the Governor has refused to engage in that conversation until his turnaround agenda items are met. That is not the spirit of compromise that is needed to make progress on this impasse.
We understand the need to conclude our work as soon as possible, but I won’t turn my back on middle class families, I won’t be a partner in destroying the services they count on, and I won’t let our higher education system fail because of lack of funding. I’m prepared to be in the State Capitol for as long as necessary to finish our work and will continue to support measures that protect middle class families and the vulnerable.
