* From US Rep. Cheri Bustos, who has floated her name for governor…

“Gov. Rauner’s first two years have been an epic failure that has pushed our state to an unprecedented crisis point. Under his downturn agenda, our state’s most vulnerable citizens are unable to count on services they should be able to take for granted, including domestic violence shelters, home health assistance or child-care assistance for low-income households. More than ever, Illinois needs a leader in the Governor’s Mansion. I urge Gov. Rauner to put aside his ideological war on working families to do the job he was elected to do and pass a budget.”

* And here’s Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers…

As Governor Rauner delivered his State of the State address, there remains more than $11 billion in bills that the state owes to vendors and service providers. There are 1 million people who have lost services, including mental health and substance-abuse treatment, HIV prevention services, and programming for victims of domestic violence. And, our budget deficit will remain $5.3 billion if the Governor continues his stubborn and partisan aversion to compromise. What we heard was nothing more than a campaign speech from a Governor who still hasn’t figured out how to lead. We heard no new ideas, and despite his claims, we have seen no effective attempt to work across the aisle to find solutions. In fact, we have seen our Governor actively work to divide us and enhance the partisan rancor that is preventing any real progress. The people of Illinois are sick and tired of waiting for real leadership.

Governor Rauner: You said you’re frustrated. Well, we are too. In these past 18 months, you have consistently treated the black, brown, poor, and working class people of Illinois as acceptable collateral damage. You had an opportunity to be a bipartisan leader, but you have put ideology and your own interests first, while failing to comprehend that your inaction is contributing to a vicious cycle of poverty, violence, and community instability in the places you pretend to be an advocate for - across all Illinois. In order to make real progress, we need leadership that can harness our collective focus on a balanced budget, meaningful education funding reform to fix our schools, and a jobs plan that works for all of us.

* As I said the other day, Sen. Kwame Raoul’s consultant/fundraiser is now working for Raoul’s friend Chris Kennedy, so he may not be in this one, but here’s his statement…

While I appreciate the governor calling attention to some serious issues within our criminal justice system, we need to recognize that real change will only come about if we invest in our neighborhoods. I recently passed legislation in the Senate that offers comprehensive trauma recovery services in communities with high levels of violent crime. If Governor Rauner is serious about ending the cycle of violence, I hope he will approve this measure.

Additionally, the governor has let another year go by without a plan to provide state services to people with disabilities, mental health issues or addiction. Every day without a budget is a day that some of our most vulnerable citizens lack access to the help they need.

As we reflect on the state of our state, we must recognize how much worse our financial situation has become under Governor Rauner’s leadership. Before the governor took office, we had paid down our backlog to a 30-day cycle. We now have an unprecedented $11 billion in unpaid bills. It is not hard to see that the difference between then and now is who is sitting in the governor’s office.

We must make it a priority in the coming days and weeks to end this stalemate. I am ready to work with anyone who comes to the table with real solutions and a willingness to compromise.

* She’s not a gubernatorial candidate, but Comptroller Susana Mendoza defeated Rauner’s hand-picked incumbent last November and is up for reelection in less than two years…

Take all the governor’s “alternative facts” out of his speech and The State of the State is: Leaderless.

He said he’s “offered many proposals to achieve a truly balanced budget.” Where are these proposals? Article 8, Sec: 2 of the state Constitution gives one very clear direction to the governor: He must prepare a balanced budget and submit it to the General Assembly. Because he has failed to do that for two years, people around this state are suffering.

Because my job is to pay the state’s bills — with inadequate funds thanks to his failure to propose a balanced budget — I hear stories every day from child care providers in Chicago, from nursing home operators in Peoria, from state employees in Springfield having their surgeries canceled if they can’t come up with half the cash to cover their own surgeries.

It is obscene that while everyone else in Illinois is suffering, Gov. Rauner has more than tripled his personal income from $58 million to $187 million and funneled more than $50 million into his own re-election campaign; tens of millions more into other political campaigns. I don’t think he can connect with the working-poor college students who had to drop out of state universities because the state has cut MAP grant funding and the university has to cut programs. The high-flying rhetoric in his speech about making the state universities great, doesn’t paper over his proposal to cut spending on higher education by 30 percent.

His administration was able to find $4 million dollars to give bonuses to higher-level non-union employees in October just before the election, but they can’t find money to fund social service agencies around the state that care for our most vulnerable residents.

He seems to be living in an alternative reality where his lack of leadership is helping the state move forward and people aren’t suffering.

In the last two years, the state’s backlog of bills grew from $6 billion to $11 billion. When we finally pay those bills, we have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of interest on them.

Our bond ratings have dropped on the governor’s watch. Last week, bond rating agency Moody’s identified the lack of a budget as the biggest threat to growth in Illinois – the single biggest drag on the state’s economy.

The state of our state does not begin to get better until the governor fulfills his constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget. He didn’t even list it as a priority in today’s speech. It’s good he thanked the leaders of the state senate. They’re doing his job for him.

Discuss.