The Daily Herald does the big picture.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich unveiled a spending plan Wednesday that cements the Chicago Democrat’s dramatic political about-face: from fiscal penny-pincher to leader of a major expansion of government programs that likely will cost taxpayers more each year.

During Blagojevich’s first two years, he played the role of fiscal conservative, battling his own party’s efforts to inflate spending and blasting lawmakers as “drunken sailors” engaged in a “spending orgy.”

But as re-election looms, he’s increasingly become the politician many conservatives and Republicans feared he would be after he ended a quarter-century of Republican rule in 2002.

In the last six months alone, he’s proposed sweeping increases in government entitlements, although he says he’s investing in the future and protecting children. Even critics admit giving health care to children and creating state-paid preschool sound like good ideas, but they add that once enacted, the ideas don’t go away and every year become more expensive.

Copley touches on the conflict.

To loud cheers from Democrats, Gov. Rod Blagojevich presented a $55.4 billion state budget Wednesday that gives more money to preschool programs, a tuition tax credit and health care.

But Republican lawmakers literally jeered the governor when he said state pensions are better off under his leadership and that he has eliminated the budget deficit.

The Tribune hits the campaign theme.

Transforming his budget speech into an election-year political rally, Gov. Rod Blagojevich drew cheers from Democrats and jeers from Republicans Wednesday as he implored lawmakers to pass a $55.3 billion spending plan that boosts social programs.

Delivering his address from the ornate House chambers, the Democratic governor at some points sounded like a polished sales representative in a corporate suite, at others a fiery preacher in the pulpit.

…And gives us a good example of how much the Republicans are opposing the governor’s spending increases.

House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) said Blagojevich’s suggestion that the budget is balanced and the state’s fiscal house is in order is “absurd.”

Cross, the father of a child with juvenile diabetes and an ardent advocate for stem-cell research, said he was unsure whether the state could afford many of the governor’s proposals, including one for a 5-year, $100 million research program.

And the Sun-Times, via the AP, breaks down the numbers.

BOTTOM LINE: $45.4 billion in operating expenses, a 4.2 percent increase, plus $9.95 billion for building and maintenance.

WHERE IT GOES: 33.2 percent to welfare; 25.7 percent education; 16.1 percent human services; 11.2 percent government services; 7.1 percent economic development; 5 percent public safety; 1.6 percent business and environmental regulation.

NEW MONEY: $1.38 billion, including $878 million in natural tax-revenue growth.

EDUCATION: $440 million in new funding, including offering preschool to every 3- and 4-year-old and $10 million in grants to schools to reduce class sizes.

PENSIONS: $437 million to government pension systems; additional money possible from selling state assets for $30 million, selling the long-dormant 10th casino license.

HEALTH: $10 million for a program to offer health coverage to low-income veterans who live far from veterans’ medical centers; $3 million for more nurses; $15 million for stem-cell research.

PRISONS: Partly open Thomson Correctional Center with 75 guards and 200 inmates; open 200-bed unit to treat methamphetamine users at Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center.

CIGARETTE TAX: $10 million from a tax on cigars.

ENVIRONMENT: $16.5 million more for the Department of Natural Resources, including $1 million for a statewide water supply survey and enhancements at parks and natural areas.