28 Comments - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:26 am: Sen. Durbin cuts this to the quick. That’s as good as it gets, can’t be refuted either. That’s the pivot off Magidan. - walker - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:30 am: Rauner probably sees Durbin’s statement as a compliment. It is his deliberate strategy for forcing change. - pundent - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:34 am: Ouch. And there’s really no denying this as the Governor himself said that crisis creates leverage. This is what the governor wanted and “because Madigan” doesn’t justify any of it. - Norseman - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:41 am: Crisis seems like such an understatement. - The Captain - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:41 am: Rauner ran in 2014 on “I’ve been successful at everything I’ve ever done”, if he had to run for re-election right now I honestly don’t know what he would run on. - Tequila Mockingbird - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 10:47 am: I think it would be more accurate to say he inherited a crisis and hasn’t fixed it. But I realize that most of y’all here are automatic Rauner bashers. - pundent - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:02 am: =I think it would be more accurate to say he inherited a crisis and hasn’t fixed it.= No, he purposely and deliberately made things worse. He has deliberately held higher education and social service agencies hostage because he believes that a fight with labor justifies it. That’s simply an acknowledgement of the facts. - SOIL M - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:12 am: Durbin has made many statements that twist the truth or are unfounded in order to make a political point. This time however he hit the nail on the head. - Bogey Golfer - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:12 am: Was Quinn there to hear of the mess he made? - Magic carpet ride - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:22 am: And Trump will do tbe same. - The Dude Abides - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:28 am: @Tequila, no it’s not a case of not being able to fix it, by every measure he has made things worse. You aren’t dealing with reality if you don’t think that things are worse now than they were before he took over. - Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:32 am: I accidentally deleted a comment. Sorry. - Lucky Pierre - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 11:54 am: Senator Durbin believes that 12 years of total control of state government produced a “mess”. Illinois voters agreed and elected a Republican governor to try to reform Illinois government and our business environment. Senator Durbin holds Governor Rauner 100 percent responsible for the current crisis. Democrats have no solutions or a passed budget to point to that works to fix the mess. They are in total opposition to the Governor’s solutions but have no plans they can share with Illinois voters that work toward fixing the mess. Typical hyper partisan rhetoric from Senator Durbin. Good luck running on that Senator. - @MisterJayEm - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 12:28 pm: “This governor that we have today inherited a mess and turned it into a crisis.” And the crisis is rapidly turning into a tragedy. – MrJM - City Zen - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 12:38 pm: From a federal perspective, I suppose $110B in pension debt is a spot on the rug “mess”. Considering how much national debt and social security deficits have continued to spiral out of control during Durbin’s tenure, his perspective falls flat. - RNUG - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 12:51 pm: This one of the few times you will.find me agreeing with Durbin. It was a nice turn of phrase. - NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 12:55 pm: What a load of State Fair Horse Manure by Durbin. He knows, and all the Dems in IL know this state was in a crisis long before Rauner came close to being in office. Has he tried to lead a charge for change, sure. Any honest person coming into office would have done that. If what you’re doing ended up with billions in debt and an out of balance budget anyone who was honest would want to change it. But what do the Dems do, deny everything and refuse to accept fault. If fact, they choose to not even present a new balanced budget or negotiate in good faith. But if no one cares, does it matter? So far most of our current elections indicate the public doesn’t care. God help Illinois because apparently no one else will! - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 1:26 pm: Appropriate observation by Durbin. What gives Rauner’s willful creation of our current crisis away is that he should have known early on that his TA couldn’t pass. How could have he not known that or claim inexperience? So much could have been avoided if Rauner focused on available reforms: workers comp and property tax freeze. - 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 1:30 pm: ===Any honest person coming into office would have done that.=== Any honest person coming into office would NOT ask that the income tax hike be allowed to sunset. Any honest person running for Governor to severely restrict collective bargaining rights would speak openly about why, and how that would address the financial problems affecting the state. The only thing “honest” about this governor is his honest contempt for the truth. - pundent - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 1:36 pm: =Any honest person coming into office would have done that.= An honest person wouldn’t claim that they didn’t have a social agenda. An honest person would have said my top priority will be the abolishment of labor unions. An honest person would admit that they didn’t think much of higher education. An honest person wouldn’t say that we can roll back the income tax rate yet adequately still fund government. An honest person wouldn’t have been elected. - Belle - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 1:55 pm: Rauner replies “Someone finally gets me.” - Lucky Pierre - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 2:50 pm: How can you freeze property taxes for local governments without a reduction of mandates from Springfield and local control over collective bargaining and or prevailing wage? You can’t. More smoke and mirrors from the democrats in Springfield. - Skeptic - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 3:26 pm: Where is the evidence that local control over collective bargaining and/or prevailing wage will allow a property tax freeze? What evidence is there that those are the only ways? “Common sense” or “It’s obvious” is not evidence. - Skeptic - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 3:27 pm: And I might add “What’s your idea then?” is also not evidence. - Dance Band on the Titanic - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 3:38 pm: Lucky Pierre - The fastest growing expense for municipalities is pensions. A “reduction of mandates from Springfield and local control over collective bargaining and or prevailing wage” will not do a thing to reduce that growth. But a property tax freeze on top of growing pension costs will lead to cuts in essential services. - HangingOn - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 3:47 pm: ==How can you freeze property taxes for local governments == ==More smoke and mirrors from the democrats in Springfield.== I’m confused. Didn’t that used to be one of Rauner’s pet projects? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 3:52 pm: ===How can you freeze property taxes for local governments without a reduction of mandates from Springfield and local control over collective bargaining and or prevailing wage?=== Campaignin’ is hard! Governin’ is difficult. Buy that 60/30… tough when you alienate your partners 24/7. Oh - Lucky Pierre -, you know all this, and yet, daily, you pretend… - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 19, 16 @ 4:24 pm: “How can you freeze property taxes for local governments without a reduction of mandates from Springfield and local control over collective bargaining and or prevailing wage?” Like this, perhaps: http://trapchicago.com/breaking-news/property-tax-freeze-bill-passes/ Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.