* We’ll look at the responses to the governor’s press conference yesterday in a separate post. Let’s start with Reuters…
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois accused Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of personally profiting from the “status quo” as the two leaders fought over the state’s budget crisis.
“Mike Madigan is making millions — millions — from his law firm, from high property taxes,” Rauner said. “Right now, the insiders, the political class, is winning and hard-working families, taxpayers, small-business owners and homeowners, they’re losing and they’re leaving.”
* Erickson…
Rauner amped up his criticism of the Democratic leaders, who said both of the lawyers make money off their tax law practices which is a “conflict of interest.” He said the speaker makes “millions” of dollars off of high property taxes and Cullerton makes his “wealth” off of “government inside deals.”
* Finke…
However, Rauner said later that the defeated [property tax freeze] legislation lacked “the single most important reform” in the property tax issue — allowing local governments to ignore the state’s prevailing wage requirement on public works projects and also allowing them to restrict the issues that are subject to collective bargaining with public employee unions such as insurance benefits and privatizing some work.
“My concern is there is not a real sincere focus on controlling costs in local government and getting control in the long term,” Rauner said at a news conference at the Executive Mansion. “Here’s the critical thing we are proposing: We want local voters to control what gets bargained. It empowers local voters.” […]
Rauner said a bill that had a property tax freeze without the collective bargaining and prevailing wage proposals wasn’t real reform.
“Having no real reform and then declaring victory is the way we’ve gotten into the mess we’re in,” Rauner said.
* Sun-Times…
[Gov. Rauner] called debate on the issue in the Legislature a “general, vague discussion and more commentary.”
“Our property taxes — it’s not debatable — that they are punishing our homeowners, punishing our small business owners, punishing Illinois’ competitiveness, causing us to lose jobs, causing family incomes in Illinois to be lower than they should be,” Rauner said. “It’s our biggest tax problem. That’s not debatable and for the Senate to spend time today debating or wondering how important property taxes are or how big a problem they are, that’s a waste of time.”
* Tribune…
Following a pattern that has consumed much of the session since early May, Democrats publicly took apart a Rauner proposal to freeze property taxes while setting themselves up to argue in the coming weeks that they had extended an olive branch of compromise.
Rauner, meanwhile, dismissed the activity as a “waste of time,” saying Democrats were not serious about negotiating a deal because their two legislative leaders work at law firms that make money contesting property tax bills. […]
“The ideas on the table didn’t include what really matters, I’ll say that,” Rauner told reporters at a news conference he convened outside the governor’s mansion. The union provisions, which Rauner refers to as “local control of government costs,” are “the single most important thing,” Rauner said. […]
“They [Madigan and Cullerton] have a fundamental conflict of interest with the taxpayers, with homeowners, small business owners in the state,” Rauner said. “We recognize that conflict of interest and we’ve got to talk candidly about the challenges that are in front of us.”
* WCIA…
“The cronies, the patronage workers, the bureaucrats, the government insiders. They’re doing well under Speaker Madigan,” he said. “Speaker Madigan is making millions of dollars from the status quo in Illinois.”
* AP…
Rauner says he’s compromised too, reducing his “turnaround agenda” to five points, with fair legislative remapping and restrictions on civil-liability lawsuits rounding out the plan.
“They’ve refused to have real negotiations on specific issues in those five bills,” Rauner told reporters outside the Executive Mansion as the House debated the tax measure. […]
Asked why he won’t accept the stand-alone tax freeze, take credit, and continue working on the tangential issues, the governor rejected the idea as an ultimately hurtful victory.
“That’s how we get in the mess we’re in,” Rauner said. “We can’t afford to nibble around the edges with very, very, minor, short-term things that don’t change the long-term trajectory of the state and then declare victory. That would be a failure of the people of Illinois.”
The governor’s full press conference is on BlueRoomStream’s site. Click here to watch.
…Adding… WICS…
“The governments belong to the local voters and the taxpayers. They don’t belong to the special interest groups that work for the government or that are inside government. The governments have got to be responsive and owned by local voters and local taxpayers. That’s what our bill does. It empowers local voters,” said Gov. Rauner.
