Coffee is for closers
Monday, Jun 5, 2017 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Sen. Bill Brady doesn’t want the governor to call a special session. Instead, he thinks the Democratic leaders should order members back to town…
“Because the legislature failed to do its job, (House Speaker) Mike Madigan and (Senate President) John Cullerton should call us back at our own expense and force us as leaders of their chambers to sit down and pass a package that rebuilds this state and that includes a balanced budget,” Brady said.
The Bloomington Republican told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin and Patti Penn the state would have to pay for lawmakers travel, housing and meals if a special session was called. He said that’s not necessary to continue budget talks.
“One of the reasons is (Rauner) thinks it’s the legislature’s authority to do their job,” Brady said. “If he calls a special session there are per diem checks that are issued. It shouldn’t be the taxpayers responsibility for the legislature to do its job.”
Brady added if Democrats had agreed to a longer-term property tax freeze, the Grand Bargain might have succeeded and he said it still might before the next budget year begins July 1.
This essentially boiled down to a disagreement over a two-year freeze bill sponsored by the Senate GOP Leader and the governor’s four-year freeze bill. So, two years of a property tax freeze was the difference between getting a real budget and continued chaos. Let that sink in a bit.
* The governor said last week that he could’ve signed Sen. Andy Manar’s education funding reform bill, but that’s not how pretty much everyone else saw it when Manar finally pulled the plug in disgust with the pace of negotiations and ran a different bill.
He should’ve taken the deal on workers’ comp when he had the chance.
He should’ve taken the deal on the budget and stopped complaining about how it didn’t quite balance two years from now. Sheesh, man, do your own job for a change.
He did finally acquiesce to a deal on local government consolidation and procurement reform, but only after pressure from House and Senate Republicans finally backed him down.
* This will never get resolved until the governor cuts a deal with the Senate. All the special sessions in the world will accomplish little more than allow the two sides to score political points.
Nothing has changed since January. Do a deal with the Senate and then put extreme and unrelenting pressure on Madigan or this ship of fools state sinks to the bottom.
…Adding… Steve Vogel…
The governor crows about being persistent in his quest for meaningful reforms. But his doggedness has done real, lasting damage. Has this businessman-turned-politician not noticed that his budget-less state has a credit rating about to scrape bottom? That talented young people are avoiding Illinois colleges? That we’re losing population?
It’s time for Rauner to seize anything that even hints of a step toward his legislative agenda, label it as progress and then offer up a real budget plan that has a chance of proceeding — with or without Madigan. Lawmakers are ready. They’re feeling the heat.
- Molly Maguire - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:12 am:
Good points, Rich. All available evidence of the last few months demonstrates, I think, that Rauner is not ready to make a deal. Doesn’t really want one. Every time he gets close, he backs off. Once he does a deal, his dream for taking the Legislature and busting public sector unions evaporates. He just can’t give that up, and why should he, little of this mess touches him.
- Moe Berg - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:18 am:
Again, all that matters are Rauner’s actions, not his words. He doesn’t want a deal or a budget. It’s all theater. It’s not that he can’t take a win, because his definition of winning is different from the traditional political one of “you get some of what you want, I get some of what I want.”
In his mind, he has two ways to “win.” The first is get everything he wants, complete Dem capitulation. For that, he’ll need to control the General Assembly. He’s working on that. The second is to keep loading up the state with debt, keep choking off “oxygen” to human service providers and universities, forcing them to close and lay off people. These are ways to shrink government and constrain its ability to spend, which in the Ayn Randian view of Rauner/Griffin etc. does too much to help the undeserving and people who made bad choices. Everything else can be privatized to the benefit of the wealthy.
- Ginhouse Tommy - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:22 am:
Lost opportunity to stick it to Madigan and watch him squirm as my dad said “like a poodle trying to pass peach pits”. He would have finally had to do what was good for the state instead of his own self interests.
- COPN - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:27 am:
“Put that coffee down!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Lf8GtMe4M
[warning: language]
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:31 am:
Rich, great stuff here, explaining the Post and posted material to a title that IS the ball game… Coffee is for Closers.
This, in particular…
===… will never get resolved until the governor cuts a deal with the Senate. All the special sessions in the world will accomplish little more than allow the two sides to score political points.
Nothing has changed since January. Do a deal with the Senate and then put extreme and unrelenting pressure on Madigan or this ship of fools state sinks to the bottom.===
If Rauner wants a deal and wants all this blame to fall upon Madigan, you force the Grand Bargain Senate Deal, with a structured Roll call, then show 25 House members with Durkin willing to meet 46 Dems that already made clear in “polling” they want a deal.
That’s it. That’s the play if Rauner and Raunerites want a budget and a deal.
Ignoring the twice undercutting of Leader Radogno makes clear the perspective those doing the ignoring… and the undercutting and the Senate path…
They… want NO coffee.
- Demoralized - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:34 am:
This should be ample evidence that the Governor is also not interested in a deal. He’s waiting for the perfect. He could have had some wins. He choose not to get them because he didn’t get everything he wanted. He needs to learn how to govern.
- Annonin' - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:37 am:
Pretty fuuny. They trot out NoOTaxBill to ’splain why a special session is not needed. Had he not been dozin’ last week he might he learned that was why the adjournment resolution written as such.
Meanwhile someone might want to brief NoTaxBill that DopeyDuct has strained everyone’s credibility on the budget and revenue issue. Last to leave were Durkie’s House GOPies and they bailed last week when Dopey tried to close down their 911 centers.
And never forget Dopey hates special sessions because he will be compared to Blagoof and he hates that match-up more than he hates Madigan.
Meanwhile we await the world exclusive Stu Levine interview and today’s installment of Dopey’s 65 self declare conflicts —let’s try JumpingFeline LLC
- Roman - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 11:42 am:
Rauner had multiple opportunities to triangulate Madigan and blew them all. Team Rauner is excellent at messaging and spinning the 24-hour news cycle. But their legislative and governing failures are of epic proportions.
- Jocko - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 12:02 pm:
==if Democrats had agreed to a longer-term property tax freeze, the Grand Bargain might have succeeded==
Speaking of GB2, how did Bill vote?
- My New Handle - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 12:12 pm:
Rauner was smart enough to shed any and all blame on Madigan right from the beginning, the Teflon Governor. But Teflon wears out and the ingredients are carcinogenic. Rauner thinks Teflon lasts forever.
- DeseDemDose - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 12:52 pm:
Until Radogno states that Rainer sank the Grand bargain she is an accomplice. It’s not just Rauner that is destroying Illinois.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 12:55 pm:
- DeseDemDose -
Read this post, including Leader Radogno’s text message to Rich… Thanks.
http://bit.ly/2o2FS4h
- Grandson of Man - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 12:57 pm:
This is a very important lesson to those who follow politics and are considering running for office–do the doable. Don’t be “clever by half,” where holding out for something unattainable is so much worse than taking what’s available.
Similar thing with the AFSCME contract. Rauner could have had a deal by now that helps taxpayers and that won’t humiliate workers and their families. There’s a reasonable chance Rauner will lose the court fight and have to go back to the bargaining table. Then what? All that time and money lost, for his ideological agenda.
- Leadership needed - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 1:49 pm:
Bill Brady doesn’t have to worry about the governor calling a special may actually be good leadership, and history has proven that the governor lacks that.
- Boone's is back - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 4:28 pm:
Great headline for this post haha. Need the Alec Baldwin video to accompany it.
- RNUG - Monday, Jun 5, 17 @ 4:32 pm:
When you are achieving your goals of government reduction and keeping taxes low by not having a budget, there is NO reason to cut a deal.
All the average voter (that only tunes in the last few weeks of an election) will hear in the next campaign is: “I cut your income tax and, for 4 years, I kept the Democrats from raising it.”