46 Comments - AnonymousOne - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 1:45 pm: Perfectly said. When some compare decades of underfunding pensions to actions taken by this governor deliberately and intentionally in 2 years it is no comparison. Governor Destructo - RNUG - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 1:49 pm: Nicely said. - Gruntled University Employee - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 1:53 pm: Wasn’t it Rauner who, early on, eluded to an alliance between himself, Cullerton and Rham to force Madigan to cooperate? I guess that idea must have included Cullerton and Rahm signing on to the TA or nothing. - Ratso Rizzo - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 1:53 pm: Good article, Rich. The citizens of Illinois are getting the shaft, and it means nothing to Rauner and Madigan because in the end they’re millionaires who don’t understand the realities of the normal, hard-working people of Illinois. - phocion - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:00 pm: Good article. While I do try to defend the Governor, he blew his chance to give Madigan a checkmate move. Too bad for everyone. - RNUG - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:06 pm: Unfortunately, the average citizen who needs to read this article will not likely never see it. But I could see the out take Rich selected being used in campaign ads. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:07 pm: Incompetence and true ignorance to poor governing, that’s a tragedy to the state. The forceful destruction to make points and win arguments, and refuse to see compromise, that’s “criminal” to your fellow man and society. - Pelonski - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:07 pm: “Softball interviews” is spot on. They ask a question and then let him do a campaign commercial instead of answer. The man is a serial liar and a joke as a Governor. The fact that he hasn’t been laughed out of office is a scary sign for our democracy regardless of your politics. - pawn - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:07 pm: Good article and I especially agree with the quote you pulled for your headline. This is intentionally vicious and indefensible in every way — morally and ethically, financially, politically. - Not It - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:08 pm: The people causing this war don’t care about the people they’re hurting. They only care about winning. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:09 pm: Thank you, Rich. For all you’ve tried to show, to interpret, to make clear to those of us that can be confused or blinded… Thank you. Sincerely. - Boone's is back - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:09 pm: Rich finally said it. It isn’t enough for Ed Boards to call on these people to fix it. They need to be shamed into doing the right thing. - Roman - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:12 pm: == How Rauner blew his chance to put Madigan on the hot seat == Yep. Cullerton keeps opening a path for Rauner to triangulate Madigan. He did it again today in his WBEZ shout out to House Repubs. But the Guv either ignores it or doesn’t know how to execute it. Is this the willful destruction of state government or political malpractice? There are no other explanations for Rauner’s conduct. - Flapdoodle - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:12 pm: Well said indeed! It was all there for the taking, but ego and blind greed got in the way. The makings of classic Greek tragedy, except it isn’t an individual but an entire state that is being destroyed. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:14 pm: When Rauner refused to complete the Grand Bargain to absolutely put Madigan in the box… and undercut Radogno to top it all off… What does that say? It’s not the politics to an eventual end game. It’s continuing pain? - wordslinger - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:14 pm: It is intentional. And I believe it’s the goal. Rauner just can’t be honest about it. He could have put together a rational plan, based on his beliefs, that social services and public higher ed had to be drastically reduced. But governing is messy and he likely wouldn’t have got all he wanted. So, instead, he’s achieving what he can through social Darwinism and lies. - Ducky LaMoore - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:20 pm: I am getting a ‘have to subscribe to read’ thingy when I click to read. Is anyone else getting this? I don’t know if I could subscribe to such a collectivist news outlet…. LOL. - Mama - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:21 pm: ==”This time, however, extreme fiscal destruction is being deliberately imposed by a governor who can’t seem to get it through his head that governing is the art of the possible. And the only possible way he was going to get anything done was to lower his expectations just a little more…” == Rich, once again you wrote an excellent analysis of what is happening in State government & why. - Peoria Citizen - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:22 pm: Here here! Totally agree with all of that Rich. Spot on. Question: At what point, if any, can Illinois citizens fight back? Besides an election obviously… is there no hope for our state’s future? - cdog - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:22 pm: Always interesting to read your insightful and stylistic writing. Good job communicating some gnarly politics. On the subject, the scary thing is these two bums are still in charge of an entire state. “House Speaker Michael Madigan would have been surrounded.” Imho, this dude is not off the hook still. If Madigan has any moral fiber he will put together a plan that will pass and then be signed. Think basketball. The missed shots, the failure to box out, the lazy playing, all make the game seem rigged. - Grandson of Man - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:26 pm: Great article, Rich. We haven’t passed one full budget going on three years. This is a lesson for all. So much damage has been caused. We have to pass annual budgets and push for more reforms, if we want them but can’t get them, in subsequent budgets or separately from them. That’s why we have annual budgets, legislative sessions every year and elections. We can make adjustments later. - Peoria - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:26 pm: Also, Gatehouse Media needs to run that story on the front page of all of their papers on Sunday. Just saying. - Mama - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:28 pm: It appears Rauner does not know how to separate his life’s work as a corporate raider from governing. Running a Business and running government are not the same. One is all about the bottom-line the other one is suppose to be about helping people in your state. - City Zen - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:29 pm: Without decades of mismanagement, would there be an impasse? A Rauner-type wouldn’t get near the governor’s office without the compounding of bad decisions over the years. To me this comes across as defending smoking. Sure it eventually gave us cancer, but we sure looked cool with our cigarettes brooding at the bar when we were young. - East Central Illinois - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:30 pm: 702 days . . . In my job, if I failed to produce the desired document as one of the requirements of my job at say, oh day 5 possibly, day 50 for sure . . . I would be FIRED!!!! 702 days - Nick Name - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:31 pm: It’s not incompetence, it’s the plan. It always has been the plan. It’s not just that “nothing else explains this.” When Gov. Gaslight does all he can to derail any attempt at a compromise — moving goalposts, stripping votes behind the scenes, saying one thing while his toadies in IPI say another, backstabing the GA GOP caucuses and leaders, and so on — then it’s blindingly obvious that this is the plan. As late as May 23, Senate Republicans were prattling on about how they needed more time. You don’t need “more time” with nine days left in the session on a budget bill that’s scheduled for a vote so it can go to the other Chamber. At that point, you simply don’t want a budget. - Arock - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:31 pm: The “art of the possible” with Madigan as done by Republican Governors in the past did nothing to fix the underlying problems of the State. Passing another bogus budget and increasing taxes is just kicking the can down the road which seems to be how the GA and past administrations let the State problems continue to snowball. - Mama - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:31 pm: = Peoria - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:26 pm: “At what point, if any, can Illinois citizens fight back?”= Inform your friends and co-workers and neighbors what Rich said in this article, and asking them to vote accordingly in the 2018 election. - Rich Miller - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:33 pm: ===Passing another bogus budget and increasing taxes is just kicking the can down the road=== Stop. Just stop right there. What’s happening now is far, far worse. Your failure to see that is mind-bogglingly stupid. - Rich Miller - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:35 pm: ===Without decades of mismanagement, would there be an impasse?=== Yes, focus solely on the past while not doing a thing about the horrific present. Enjoy church on Sunday. - Mama - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:35 pm: - Nick Name - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:31 pm: Nick, you hit the nail on the head! - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:35 pm: ===Passing another bogus budget and increasing taxes is just kicking the can down the road which seems to be how the GA and past administrations let the State problems continue to snowball.=== … and yet, you continue to purposely ignore Rauner’s three status quo, phony, sham budgets. If you are going to be so purposely disingenuous, go outside, yell at the pretty clouds today, and pretend Rauner isn’t puroposly hurtin’ Illinois, and when he’s pretendin’ he’s not, he’s just like those you think are so different, yet Rauner’s budget are exactly the same. Willfully ignorant, has to be. You’ve been told this way too often now for you to accidentally “think” what you type. - Anon221 - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:41 pm: Rauner’s consistent insincerity that he is not focused on politicking is schizophrenic at best. He has kept up the mantra of Reform, Reform, Reforn with the newest addition of Relief! But it’s that politicking he seems to so enjoy in his retirement that may have really boxed him in, at least for the moment. Reform bills will be coming to his desk. He can veto, line , or sign. Regardless, until all of the Reforms he wants that he is using for Robocall fodder and Duct Tape ads are “done to his liking”, I doubt a budget bill will be making the trip. The hardest part about that will be the Dems holding firm on not allowing K-12 to get separated out. That, right now, is the “only hope” that we may actually see a budget this year. - Liberty - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:44 pm: Great article Rich- Rauner is enabling the permanent destruction of the Republican party. - AC - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:45 pm: I think Governor Rauner needs help from beyond this world. Perhaps, on a dark and stormy night, when the power is out, from out of the darkness and the thunder the ghost of Richard J. Daley could bring the governor a message: “Look at our Lords disciples. One denied Him; one doubted Him; one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn’t have perfection, how are you going to have it?” And then, disturbed by what happened, and wondering if it was just a dream, the Governor fumbles around for an LED flashlight he got at Harbor Freight the same day he got all those non union tools for his workshop in the commercials. After he finds the flashlight he comes across the only thing in his stack of newspapers and magazines he hadn’t finished reading, that collectivist Crain’s. While reading Rich Miller’s article, the following words words keep running through his head: “Get something done and build on it over time.” But then, as the storm passes, and the Governor gets more tired, he inevitably rolls back to sleep thinking, “What do you expect from Rich Miller? He did work for Madigan after all.” - James the Intolerant - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:51 pm: I think that a property tax freeze is harmful for local government, especially schools, but if Rauner would agree if he got a 4 year property freeze, give it to him. The problem is would he move forward with that “win”. - ArchPundit - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 2:57 pm: ===ssing another bogus budget and increasing taxes is just kicking the can down the road which seems to be how the GA and past administrations let the State problems continue to snowball. Factually false. The increase under Quinn was reducing the backlog and working towards a long term solution. The problem wasn’t that the past GA’s and Governors increased taxes, it was that they didn’t increase taxes until Quinn. - Nick Name - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:10 pm: “Nick, you hit the nail on the head!” Thank you, Mama! - Markus - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:11 pm: Rich Nailed It- if we’re lucky, early in overtime we get something close to the original grand bargain Rauner blew up months ago.  If we’re not, schools don’t open and then it will get resolved with something close to the original grand bargain Rauner blew up months ago.  In any scenario, we will end up with something close to the original grand bargain Rauner blew up months ago. In the meantime, how many more social service agencies will close, how many more medical bills will remain unpaid and how many more vendors and schools will be stiffed by the Rauner administration until we end up with something close to the grand bargain that Rauner blew up months ago? This article should be forwarded to every State Legislator with a note to #DoYourJob. But they will probably read it here anyway - City Zen - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:17 pm: ==The increase under Quinn was reducing the backlog and working towards a long term solution.== My retirement account begs to differ. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:21 pm: - City Zen - Your blind ignorance to governmental accounting avc math is noted… - Anonymous - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:30 pm: =702 days . . . In my job, if I failed to produce the desired document as one of the requirements of my job at say, oh day 5 possibly, day 50 for sure . . . I would be FIRED!!!! 702 days= If you worked for Illinois voters, you would be re-elected. Even Rich admits in his article that dealing with Illinois’ debt problems would cause election “woes”. The reason we’re in this jam is because voters chose to be ignorant or dishonest for a long time. Eventually they elected some charlatan who wanted to shake things up by kicking the can over a cliff instead of just kicking it down the road. - cc - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:42 pm: In the future all the mea culpas coming from either party of this state will ever be enough. “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” - DeseDemDose - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 3:46 pm: I can’t come up with one example of Rauner trying to compromise. - City Zen - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 4:26 pm: ==Your blind ignorance to governmental accounting avc math is noted…== Anyone reviewing Illinois’ books would concur that governmental accounting is indeed blind ignorance. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 2, 17 @ 4:30 pm: ===Anyone reviewing Illinois’ books would concur that governmental accounting is indeed blind ignorance=== … and yet, Quinn made the pension payments and had the backlog down to 30 days. I get it, math is hard for you, your blind anger, that might be the base of the willful ignorance? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.