40 Comments - Gruntled University Employee - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:49 pm: Jake Brimberry has won the internet for the day, congratulations sir (tips hat). - Macbeth - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:53 pm: Hooray, Jake! - Carhartt Union Negotiating Team - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:53 pm: Dumb hillbilly. Prolly wears a $20 watch while he spouts his logical musings. - Mike Cirrincione - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:54 pm: Agree with Jake. And I’d add, isn’t that how managing a nursing home works. Creating a budget around the business, not a business around the budget. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:55 pm: Jake Brimberry, That is Restaurant-quality. Cannoli for you. Oswego Willy - Fav Hum - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 2:56 pm: It’s a non sequitur. Budget should fit what income is, not the economy. - Joe M - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:02 pm: Just remember that after making millions as a businessman in Illinois all those years, candidate Rauner, when asked, could not point to a single Illinois job he had created during those years he was making so much money. - Rod - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:02 pm: Likely thoughts by Governor Rauner relating to Mr. Brimberry twitter response to him: Yes that is why you are a broke dumb hillbilly and I am a billionaire, it is called the vision thing. Too bad I can’t actually say that because you are probably part of my base voters. - Skeptic - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:02 pm: Yeah, non-sequitor because the Job Creators(tm) are excited about term limits! /snark - East Central Illinois - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:03 pm: Dear Bruce: Please stop with the campaign stuff. It is way past time that you started governin’. Please .. . DO YOUR JOB - Earnest - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:04 pm: Can’t change the past. How about changing the present? - illini - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:08 pm: Jake - you nailed it ! - Tron - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:09 pm: Illinois Spending vs Job Growth? Does our Governor have an opinion about whether it’s colder in the winter or on the lake? Talk about missing the point. He needs to concern himself with expenditures and revenues. That’s what is causing the backlog of bills to get out of control. You can’t “grow the economy” to the point that it pays off our backlog and improves the funding ratio of our pension systems. Unless, of course, all 13 million Illinoisans get a massive raise this year. Pro-tip: That won’t happen. - Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:11 pm: ===For years, Illinois has spent more than it’s brought in, and it is unacceptable.=== “And if you give me four more years as your governor, I might consider starting to do something about it maybe.” - AC - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:12 pm: Fire Leslie Munger and hire Jake Brimberry, he has a much better handle on the concept of a budget than anyone surrounding Rauner currently. - City Zen - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:14 pm: The flag on the summit should be red. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:19 pm: If he wants to get a handle on spending, he might want to get a budget. And if he wants to cut spending, he might want to advocate for specific changes in statute to get there. - John Rawlss - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:24 pm: “Create a budget” is code for “pass a tax hike”. Gov. Rauner is thinking big, about the structure of our economy - and how that PRECLUDES balanced budgets. Anyone who says raising taxes will fix IL’s problems is selling you snake oil. Must be about GROWTH - Honeybear - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:26 pm: So what has Rauner done for job growth? He spent two years starving DCEO of resources and personnel in an effort to create an unaccountable P3 ( public private partnership) Almost all effort at DCEO was expended on this Intersect Illinois was created and promptly FAILED They only in truth raised 2 million Only have two employees left Because they failed to achieve 501c3 status necessary for a P3 Basically they have been illegally doing business on behalf of the state. There is even a House committee investigating them! Rauner has almost entirely failed at attracting jobs! Look I can’t even add up the EDGE agreements because my little calculator doesn’t go up that high. Hundreds of millions in Corporate Welfare Rauner never put a bit of effort into his own economic agency DCEO. DCEO is a ghost town with the exception of made up jobs for Munger employees. Rauner has had two years to do a lot of things to bring in jobs Why not do the doable? Because it’s never been about growth or jobs. It’s about willful destruction Buy it Break it Sell it - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:29 pm: ===Must be about GROWTH=== Partly, yes. But you can’t grow your way out of this hole. Not possible. - 47th Ward - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:29 pm: ===The flag on the summit should be red.=== The mountain of spending should be a crater of debt. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:34 pm: What exactly is the governor doing every day to “grow the economy?” Running up billions in unpaid bills to Illinois vendors, causing layoffs and closings? Gutting higher ed, forcing more layoffs and students to pursue their education out of state? Neglecting to come up with any sort of capital plan, after more than two years in office? Those seem like precisely the things a governor would do to inflict damage to the economy. - Yeah - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:37 pm: Note to Readers: Graph begins when Pension Ramp turns up. Much of the 66% increase is due to known, planned, delayed Pension Payments. - AC - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:52 pm: ==“Create a budget” is code for “pass a tax hike”.== Mathematics doesn’t dispute that. The tax increase already happened, we just haven’t paid the bill yet. - Name/Nickname/Anon - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 3:57 pm: If my calc is correct, 66% spending increase over 17 years is roughly 3% per year. I would guess a good portion of that increase is due to the pension ramp. - Quizzical - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:00 pm: According to Rauner, shouldn’t the tax increase have been a ‘massive job killer’. And yet total jobs grew, although slowly. Shouldn’t the number of jobs have grown quickly after the tax increase expired? What does this chart prove? - Arsenal - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:08 pm: ==“Create a budget” is code for “pass a tax hike”== Oh my god, now the basic idea that enterprises should be run on budgets is a liberal conspiracy. You guys have lost it. - WWGD - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:24 pm: Stop with the commercials - we need a Budget!! You let this go too long. Not a good move– just do your job– the budget sign it or let the grand budget go thru. - Sigh - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:30 pm: How much is the Governor’s office (or agencies under his control) spending on travel for the Governor’s staff to be in Springfield for session? I thought he was going to make Springfield the headquarters for state government. - K - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:32 pm: I hope someone finds Jake and buys that man a drink. Also, the flag on the summit should be upside down. - blue dog dem - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:35 pm: Now Jake sounds like a fiscal conservative. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:43 pm: Below is a link from BLS that allows you to track Illinois employment for any range of years from 1976 to current day. Illinois’ historic employment peak was 6.34M in Nov. 2007 (thanks Blago, Jones and Madigan! if you believe the Raunerbots snake oil logic). Employment declined in the Great Recession to 5.86M in Nov. 2009. Current preliminary report for Feb. 2017 is 6.18M employed. https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet - JS Mill - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 4:57 pm: @NickName- you would guess wrong. Quinn was the first to actually pay the full pension payment and that was six years ago I believe. - Been there, done that - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 5:03 pm: Jake for Governor! - BK Bro - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 5:36 pm: Jake seems like more of a fiscal conservative than Rauner is. Per Jake’s statement, the Illinois budget should be reduced significantly to match the Illinois economy. The total expenditures and obligations (based on the State budgets I’ve found online during the Quinn and Rauner years) have basically increased beyond GDP growth or inflation every year. No way to grow out of this one. Significant cuts and (hopefully) some growth need to happen. - Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Apr 4, 17 @ 9:57 pm: JSM, every Governor since Thompson has made the full, legally required pension payments. Edgar and Ryan made full payments as required by the original ramp. Blagojevich paid part of FY 03 in cash, the rest with borrowing. FY 04 was all borrowed. FY05 was paid in cash on the original ramp. FY06 and 07 were cut $1billion each and the ramp was “reset.” FY08 was paid in cash on the new ramp; that budget was almost done without Blagojevich after his humiliating GRT ideer. Quinn started in FY09, which was paid in full in cash. His remaining years were all paid in full, 4 in cash, 2 borrowed. I couldn’t tell you what Rauner has paid or how. - Anonymous - Wednesday, Apr 5, 17 @ 8:13 am: Gross state product is also up about two-thirds since 2000. So state spending hasn’t moved much, as a share of what we all produce. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ILNGSP - DaMayor - Thursday, Apr 13, 17 @ 4:52 pm: Sounds like most of you agree that the Democrats have for years created a budget that does not fit our economy! Now that Rauner wants to fix that by paring the budget AND increasing revenue through more jobs you just can’t wrap your heads around it. That is why this state is so messed up! - James Knell - Tuesday, Apr 18, 17 @ 4:02 pm: A little income tax increase back in 2001 to match Indiana’s then rate of 3.4% would have saved a lot of grief. But clearly it is more important that the ILGOP position itself as the party of no tax increases, no matter what. The future is now. BTW, how much are Brucie’s friends making off all that debt? - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Apr 18, 17 @ 4:04 pm: ===A little income tax increase back in 2001 to match Indiana’s then rate of 3.4% would have saved a lot of grief. === Or in 2003, when our Democratic governor refused to do it. George Ryan even offered to pass a tax hike for him, but RRB said no way. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.