* Brian Mackey takes a look at regional jealousy and the debate over how to pay for things…

“Do we get our cut of the pie?” asks John Jackson, a professor of political science at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

“It’s probably a more explosive question in Illinois because we have such a long-standing, divisive debate about regionalism. And that debate takes the form of Chicago/Cook County versus Downstate. … And Downstate that resonates because we firmly believe that we’re not getting our fair share,” he says.

* He brings up Paul Simon Public Policy Institute polling which always shows that Illinoisans demand state budget cuts, but not to schools, universities, public safety, anti-poverty programs and programs for people with disabilities…

Jackson says political scientists call that disconnect “symbolic conservatives and operational liberals.” Such people want government programs, especially if it benefits them directly, “but they want to get rid of somebody else’s waste and fraud. And that’s the way the legislature has essentially acted, and government in the state has acted.”

The idea of symbolic conservatives and operational liberals calls to mind something a state senator told me years ago. It was Jeff Schoenberg, a Democrat from Evanston who’s since left the legislature. Then-Gov. Pat Quinn had proposed closing a few state facilities Downstate, and local legislators were resisting.

“They talk a good game about being fiscally conservative, but when it comes to closing a public facility that’s under-utilized or not cost efficient, they’re like New Deal Democrats,” Schoenberg said in 2012.

Yep. Remember this story?…

An effort to give lawmakers the power to block Gov. Pat Quinn from closing large state facilities fell one vote short of passage in the Senate Wednesday. … In addition to Forby, those supporting the idea included state Sens. Mike Jacobs of East Moline, John Jones of Mount Vernon and Kyle McCarter of Lebanon.

The year before Sen. McCarter tried to block Quinn from shuttering a facility in his district, he did this…

State Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon… conducted a Statehouse news conference just now to accuse Democrats of not taking the budget crisis seriously. McCarter and other GOPs called for a $30 billion ceiling on the budget (it’s a little over that now), with cuts and reforms designed to get rid of the major new income tax hike that went into effect this year. […]

McCarter delivered the message standing next to a 125-pound roasted pig that a butcher in his district had had shipped in to dramatize the pork-laden state budget.

Gov. Rauner, by the way, pledged to keep that facility open during the 2014 campaign.

* Mackey also made the same observation I did on Monday evening when Metra melted down for the second week in a row…

Remember earlier today when several suburban Republican legislators were screaming about the prospect of more government spending? One even called increased spending “evil.” I wonder if any of them took the Metra home after their press conference.

* And that brings us to yesterday, when Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti was asked how the governor planned to cut taxes…

Chris Kaergard: What’s your plan to reduce the tax hike? Speaking of plans that need fleshing out what’s your administration’s plan to reduce the tax hike?

LG Sanguinetti: Well our administration’s plan over the course of the four years that we’ve been in leadership, in going forward, is to [cross talk]. Well of course because there will be another term because I firmly believe that after the voters do their homework they will find that Bruce Rauner is, is the leader in Illinois that will make Illinois a wonderful place to have businesses, to grow your families here, to grow your businesses here. Why? Because over the course of time we will be less punitive to businesses, which is something that we’ve always fought for. We’ve seen it with the Angel Investment Tax Credit and the fact that we resuscitated it. We saw that with the LLC fees and the fact that Bruce Rauner took it back to the tune of 70%. Why? So that our small farmers could decide to open up their businesses. Other businesses could come here and take a leap rather than doing it in our neighboring states where it was so much cheaper in the past. This is the sort of governor that you will have in Bruce Rauner. One that will not be punitive to businesses and one who is truly a leader. Not an individual that was anointed by Mike Madigan who has been in office since I was a mere 3 months of age. Thank you.