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Question of the day

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Illinois

* A roundup of Inauguration Day coverage…

* Quinn takes oath for full term as governor; speech offers few details

* Topinka, Rutherford Put GOP Back On State’s Big Stage

* Topinka back in state office as comptroller

* Quinn sworn in as governor amid budget crisis

* Quinn supporters dance Monday, hard work starts today

* Trib coverage

* Quinn: ‘We will pay our bills’

* Public braves cold for Quinn

* Governor Quinn sworn in; tough road ahead

* One of the criticisms in the media was that Gov. Pat Quinn didn’t offer up specifics in his address…

Democrats didn’t fault Quinn for not being more specific.

“This is his day. He’ll have the chance for the bully pulpit coming up for the long term,” said Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley.

“I don’t really think it was the role of the governor today to use his inaugural to talk about a pending legislative item,” said Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. “The governor’s made the case for his tax increase.”

Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, wanted more.

“I’d like to hear more specifics on how we’re going to get the state working again and how we’re going to fix our fiscal deficit,” Dillard said. “Inauguration speeches are for nice platitudes, but at this time, in this crisis in Illinois, I would have liked to hear a little more substantively from the governor about how he’s going to put Illinois to work and how we’re going to get out of this fiscal crisis.”

* The Question: Should Gov. Quinn have offered up a list of specifics that he intended to accomplish? Explain.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:09 am

Comments

Yes. Quinn needs to outline his vision for the state. He has never done so. I’m convinced it is in there somewhere in his head. But, we are all clueless as to what it is since he has never explained it. Being Pat Quinn, is not a vision for the state. OK, we know you are the consumer/taxpayer crusader, now what?

Comment by Niles Township Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:17 am
Had Quinn added (and it would be an addition) specific policy proposals to that speech, he’d still be at the mike.

No. A pro-Quinn spin why would be (as Mautino said) that Quinn’s already made his case on the budget. A spin critical of Quinn would be that the power rests with Madigan and Cullerton and he’ll be lucky to get any deal on terms other than his own.

Comment by Boone Logan Square Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:17 am
As we are in an economic crisis, Governor Quinn should have addressed his plan to some extent, but not taken questions about it. The severity of this crisis should in no way, shape, manner or form be minimized.

Comment by Mark Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:18 am
Does he have such a list?

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:19 am
Quinn has two opportunities coming up to outline his plans: State of the State and his budget address. The inauguration address needn’t be a policy address. Besides, we’ve slept through enough of those from Quinn already.

Comment by tubbfan Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:20 am
Nope. He has a state of the state address and a budget address for that. Of course, a scripted speech that was concise and had a theme that carried through the entire thing would have been nice, but he did not need to go into specifics.

Comment by Montrose Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:20 am
After showing himself to be a liar ” I’ll veto any tax increase over 4% ” I think the less we here from Quinn the better.

Comment by Fed up Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:21 am
Fed up, he never said that. Don’t put quotation marks around an imaginary quote.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:25 am
I agree with those who pointed out the upcoming SOS (appropriate acronym) and budget (needs a nifty acronym) addresses suffice for the immediate tasks at hand.

It would have been nice to lay down some long-term markers, a vision of the future that gets us out of our current problems mindset. But with Quinn, I guess maybe you should just be happy that it ends before you slip into catatonia.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:27 am
Has anyone else seen “The King’s Speech?” Wonderful movie, but I thought of a line from that while listening to Quinn ramble. At the end of the film, King George has delivered his very important speech and tells his therapist he threw in some stuttering
“so people would know it was really me (or words to that effect)”. That’s what Quinn’s speech was like Monday–something we could know it was him just by listening to it.

The state of the state better contain some policy though.

Comment by Cheryl44 Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:30 am
Yes, he should have had at least a few specifics. if nothing else a teaser of coming attractions. A more comprehensive plan of action would be expected in the budget address.

He has been in the office for 2 years and we should have heard what will be different from now on. With no specifics, we can expect more of what he did in the last 2 years.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:33 am
Inauguration Day is a celebration, thanking others, being positive, do a rah-rah team, and trying to start a good way forward. The SOS and budget gets into details. People know the process and who is behind the scene to get this done. To expect Quinn, or anyone, to get up at Inauguration and detail out the future is asking too much.

Comment by zatoichi Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:34 am
Absolutely. Wasn’t that one of the main criticisms of Brady during the campaign?

Comment by Holdingontomywallet Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:38 am
Ditto Montrose and Wordslinger. It’s an inaugural address, not a budget or State of the State. There will be plenty of time for specifics. Inaugural speeches are the capstone of a political campaign. They tend to echo and amplify campaign themes, which helps explain Quinn’s rambling yesterday.

Speaking of specific ideas, one idea that Tom Cross raised with the NY Times that might have been interesting on inauguration day was Cross’ idea to merge the Comptroller and Treasurer’s offices. He really needs to introduce that soon, before Judy and Dan get too comfortable. Perhaps he’ll include that in his list of bills he’ll be offering to solve the budget problem.

Of course, that might have made last night’s festivities a little awkward for Cross. The GOP finally gets 2 elected statewide offices and the House GOP leader thinks they should only have one.

And no new carpet!

Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:42 am
” To expect Quinn, or anyone, to get up at Inauguration and detail out the future is asking too much.”
Not just “too much” to expect specifics, but exceptionally silly. Inauguration speeches are for articulating things like vision; perhaps goals. Didn’t listen to his speech (was it inspiring?)… wouldn’t expect anything of substance.

Comment by wordonthestreet Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 11:48 am
I didn’t expect to hear such specifics in the inaugural address. After all it is just a party day and one does not expect much real business to be done.

I find it ironic that the GOP who didn’t give specifics when they were campaigning and asking for votes are calling Quinn out because he didn’t give any here.

Comment by Irish Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:07 pm
NO. That’s what the budget address and the state of the state are for. I think the main problem is that he’s not given any concrete well thought-out ideas at one of those speeches… or any other time.

Comment by Ahoy Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:18 pm
Rich it’s not a perfect qoute and grammatically you are correct but he did say that in context and he lied and no matter how you spin it he lied.

Comment by Fed up Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:31 pm
===it’s not a perfect qoute===

It’s not even close to the quote.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:33 pm
I agree with Ahoy and others that the time for him to roll out “the plan” is in the upcoming budget and SOS addresses –not his inauguration speech. But does anybody honestly hold out much hope that he’ll have anything concrete and workable to lay out then, either?

If there’s just more of the rambling “I believe in trains and Democracy here in the Land of Lincoln” BS it’s going to be a very bad day for Soy Boy’s credibility and for our state’s reputation.

Comment by Responsa Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:35 pm
for the outsider, what was the quote? did he imply or not that he would veto a tax hike north of 4%.

Comment by Parmenides Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:42 pm
Rich, not only did he say that, he said it in direct denial of HIS OWN BUDGET DIRECTOR, David Vaught, when Vaught said they were proposing to raise the tax to 5%.

“What I support is a 1 percent surcharge for education, and that’s all,” Quinn said July 29.

This is even worse; it implies prior intent and dissembling by Quinn on the campaign trail. It sure looks like Quinn was planning to raise the rate much more then what he campaigned on.

Comment by AJsDaddie Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:42 pm
Oh, and here’s the quote:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-29/news/ct-met-quinn-brady-taxes-20100729_1_tax-hike-tax-rate-income-tax

Sounds like Brady was right when he said that Quinn would say anything to get elected.

Comment by AJsDaddie Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:45 pm
Rich did he lie?

Comment by Fed up Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:47 pm
===did he lie? ===

Not sure I would use that word, but there was no way his campaign tax hike proposal was gonna pass. It didn’t do nearly enough about the deficit, and that was obvious and that was why his budget office was saying it would be closer to 2 percent.

Still, he did run on a tax hike platform and he was elected over a guy who said he’d cut taxes and magically balance the budget. Was that a lie? Probably as much as Quinn’s was.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:59 pm
Yes. You’re 60 years old, you’ve been in politics 35 years, you’ve been lt gov or gov for 8 years and you don’t have specific ideas of what you want to do?

hello?

Comment by shore Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 12:59 pm
Now, let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:00 pm
We will never know if Brady lied about taxes but we do know Quinn did.

Comment by Fed up Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:02 pm
Yes, we do know that he wasn’t telling the truth about the budget. That was pretty basic mathematics.

Now, move along.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:03 pm
I’ll try again.

“Should Gov. Quinn have offered up a list of specifics that he intended to accomplish? Explain. ”

Yes. Before attempting to hang a 75% income tax rate increase on the citizens of Illinois (not to mention a job-destroying corporate tax hike), he should have a concrete plan in place. Since he is pushing to get the increase through today, he should have laid out his plan already.

Comment by AJsDaddie Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:17 pm
It’s not 75, it’s 66.6666666.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:19 pm
To the person I keep deleting. You’re being deleted because a few of you have attempted to highjack this post. Not gonna happen. Don’t like it? Find another place to comment.

There are more relevant posts today for your little flame war. Move it there and tone it down.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 1:35 pm
–It’s not 75, it’s 66.6666666.–

LOL, so people can understand WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING, why don’t we just round it to 66.6? Put that in a headline, and you’ll beat yesterday’s traffic, Rich!

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 2:35 pm
Not unless he has something to say.

the worst thing would be to say something and later regret it, but feel it would be embarrassing to walk it back, so we’re stuck with it.

Budget submittal comes soon enough.

Comment by Marty Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 3:01 pm
I’d prefer calling it a 2 point increase.

Comment by Bill Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 3:05 pm
No. No need to go into details. We already know them: (1) Tax Increase (2) Tax Increase… (452) Spending cuts. Relax, just kidding

Comment by Nuance Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 3:08 pm
Since so much is on the table right now, I doubt if it would have been wise to give specific details. For him to get through any speech without putting his foot in it somewhere is a pretty good accomplishment for him. Yesterday’s speech wasn’t great, but it is probably better that it wasn’t too substantive.

Comment by Wensicia Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 4:39 pm
No. I am by no means a fan of Gov. Quinn, but this was his day to celebrate. He won, and was deserving of the lime-light for his day. The State-of the-State address, and the Budget Speech are the times for that.

Comment by So IL M Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 5:08 pm
It was not mandatory. I personally believe the Acceptance Speech he gave was, on the whole, one of his best ever. It was positive, forward-thinking, and quite inspirational. As the good Father (i.e. priest) noted in the Final Benediction, in many ways, Governor Quinn’s speech was a lot like a Church sermon. And he may not wear it on his sleeve often, but make no mistake, Illinois’ #1 Leader is a man of deep, personal Christian faith and convictions, who obviously believes more so in LIVING his faith as Governor. Indeed, all 5 of the religious presenters’ prayers and insights yesterday, I felt, were very meaningful and moving….

Comment by Just The Way It Is One Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 7:59 pm
No, not at the inauguration. That is a celebretory time for thanking the troops and maybe rallying them with a high-level talk. Better angels of our nature, etc. But I do wish he actually had a list of specifics he would like to accomplish. I seriously doubt that he does, and he’s given no evidence in his years as governor that he even thinks as far ahead as the next sentence that will come out of his mouth.

Comment by JustMe Tuesday, Jan 11, 11 @ 8:43 pm