* Gov. Pat Quinn has complained repeatedly over the past several months about how the General Assembly punted by sending him lump sum budgets the past two years. But, today, House Speaker Michael Madigan told reporters that Quinn asked him to pass yet another lump sum budget this year. Watch…

Sheesh.

* Madigan also said that Quinn’s borrowing plan is “not being real well received by the Legislature,” which is kinda obvious. And Madigan said that he has “no plans to pursue” some of Quinn’s other ideas like school consolidation.

* This story is more than a little behind the curve since the actual House resolution divvying up the cash to appropriations committees passed the chamber 117-0 way back on March 17th…

Illinois House leaders are pushing forward with a budget plan that would ignore many of the governor’s spending proposals.

The top Democrat and top Republican in the House said Wednesday they have settled on the amount of money available for major categories of state government. Now, House committees will decide which services get a piece of that money and which don’t.

Education, for instance, would get about $6.8 billion — a cut of $200 million.

* The reason it’s “news” today is because Speaker Madigan and Leader Cross testified in committee about some approp bills. Watch…

You can peruse the budgetary work sheet distributed to approp committee members by clicking here.

* I forgot to post Finke’s column yesterday. He has some interesting budget info from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability…

One of the center’s conclusions was that despite all of the complaints about the state spending too much, it would be a good deal more if spending had kept up with inflation and population growth over the last decade. If you take those factors into account, the analysis determined, spending is less now than it was in 2000. Not a little less, but nearly 16 percent less. Overall. Higher education, it said, is down 35 percent, and the often vilified outgo for health care is down 13.4 percent.

It’s hard to argue that state government is somehow immune from inflation. But it’s also going to be hard convincing taxpayers - whose own paychecks probably haven’t kept up with inflation - that the state needs to spend more. […]

The analysis determined that about $5.45 billion of [the governor’s proposed $8.75 billion borrowing plan] is for old bills. Another $1 billion is to pay for current bills. That’s a no-no, in the same sense you don’t mortgage your home to buy this month’s groceries. The groceries will soon be gone, but the debt will last for years.

The center also said repaying the money over 14 years, as Quinn wants, is too long and the whole thing is backloaded, which is not a good idea.