* From Gov. Rauner’s SJ-R op-ed…

A bad deal for taxpayers is worse than no deal at all, because it preserves the broken system and continues our state’s slow and painful decline.

I addressed this topic in a recent Crain’s Chicago Business column.

Even if Rauner is right (and he may be) that a bad deal “continues our state’s slow and painful decline,” he completely ignores the fact that no deal would take that slow decline and jam it into overdrive.

No deal means $24 billion in overdue bills by January of 2019. No deal means junk bond credit ratings, which means Illinois won’t be able to borrow in 2019 to pay off that mountainous backlog. No deal means an accelerated decline and even collapse of universities and colleges and more huge tears in our already ripped up social service fabric. No deal means more delays in funding for K-12 schools which are currently dealing with a billion-dollar backlog. No deal means higher unemployment. No deal means chaos.

* Meanwhile, this reader said he received an automated poll…

My wife answered a telephone poll yesterday (yes, we still have a landline) that tested Rauner against Pritzker and Kennedy, then had multiple questions about the “four and four” compromise – 4 year increase in income tax, 4 year complete property tax freeze along with multiple levels of cuts to Medicaid, higher ed, local government funds (10%), state operations, mass transit, etc. Wish I took notes on all the listed items and cut levels but we were finishing dinner at the time.

Pretty clear from the questions that the poll was by the Rauner camp.