Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Fisking Rauner

Posted in:

Illinois

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner said Wednesday he understands the frustration of Illinois residents tired of living without a state budget.

“It’s frustrating we don’t have a budget. … When I started this job, I was 6-8 and had a full head of hair. It’s hard,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not patient, but I am extremely persistent. … I’m going to stay persistent.” […]

He said his requirements to approve a budget remain the same: “I’m not going to sign an unbalanced budget,” and “I won’t sign off on any new taxes unless we get major structural changes” in government regulations as called for in his agenda.

Just to be clear, he won’t sign an unbalanced budget, but he’ll propose three of them in a row.

* More…

“I ran for governor because all of my fellow business builders were leaving Illinois,” he said. “The number one state people are going is Indiana. C’mon. It ain’t for the weather. … Our problems are all self-inflicted. Our government is a bureaucratic nightmare, and we’re going to change it.”

Notice that he said “my fellow business builders” and not his current favorite phrase “job creators.” Why? Well, maybe because when he was asked during a campaign debate to detail some jobs he created he couldn’t.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:47 am

Comments

This …

== Just to be clear, he won’t sign an unbalanced budget, but he’ll propose three of them in a row. ==

… cannot be repeated enough.

Comment by Linus Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:53 am
“Business builders?”

Now there’s some mighty spin on vulture capitalism.

Comment by MSIX Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:54 am
“Business builders”. Finally no perfidy.

Comment by Honeybear Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:55 am
Isn’t it great having a governor with all the negative traits of Blago and Jimmy Carter, and all the positive traits of Montgomery Burns? Just awesome.

Comment by Ducky LaMoore Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:55 am
Griff and Uiehlein moved to Indy? When did that happen?

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:56 am
===Just to be clear, he won’t sign an unbalanced budget, but he’ll propose three of them in a row.===

This is just so delicious.

This is also been his trap for Dems;

Propose unbalanced budget, don’t propose politically damaging cuts too.

Make a ridiculous speech that Rauner is “open” to a tax hike, when reality dictates a tax increase isn’t a give, but required.

Here’s the “fun” part.

Rauner first gets Dems to raise taxes with Dem sponsors, then has Dems vote for continual cuts, along with required “turnaround agenda” (41, 7, 13, “only” 2) items… to get a budget to save “what’s left”.

This isn’t governing, this is only leveraging an agenda, getting a Dem tax increase, and getting Dems voting for social service cuts and anti-Labor legislation.

“Bruce Rauner failed”

Purposely.

It’s Rauner’s rascally genius on display.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 9:57 am
Words–just terrible we dont have a budget, blah, blah, reform, blah, jobs, blah, madigan…..

Deeds–no budget, compromise, leadership, etc.
Just suffering and lasting damage. More turmoil coming with possible strike, shutdown, and more.

Comment by Langhorne Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:00 am
To be clear, Rauner would not sign any of the budgets he has proposed if they were passed by the GA.

His words.

See why they don’t like him to talk off-script?

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:00 am
Did he say bidness or business?

Are bidness people and school children the only audiences he will speak to now?

Comment by Henry Francis Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:04 am
If he’s correct about his height and hair being effected while in office, by January 2019, he’s going to look like Michael J. Madigan.

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:06 am
“I was 6-8 and had a full head of hair.”

What? I get the hair loss joke but is he saying he’s shorter now due to premature aging? Is that some faux folksy thing he picked up somewhere? Never heard anyone say that.

Comment by Anon Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:07 am
Btw, how many jobs has his excellency built?

Comment by Langhorne Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:08 am
When the next Gov election comes and there’s a debate, what is he going to say?

Blaming everything on Madigan is not going to fill an hour.

Comment by Blue Bayou Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:08 am
==The number one state people are going is Indiana.==

…on their way to South Carolina and Georgia.

Comment by Jocko Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:09 am
Ow what are items 41,7,13? Tried to find the original 44 but failed to find it. Thanks!

Comment by Honeybear Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:10 am
=Btw, how many jobs has his excellency built? =

Well, in Rauner’s defense he did find a job for Leslie Munger.

It came with a nice salary and benefit package too.

So there is 1.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:11 am
“I won’t sign off on any new taxes unless we get major structural changes”

I agree we need major structural changes.
That’s why we’re voting you out.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:19 am
And Diana got a Chief of Staff. That’s 2 jobs created.

Comment by Big Joe Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:21 am
Job loss and population loss started long before he became Governor so who is to blame for Illinois’ bad business climate? One of the first into the recession and one of the last out long before Rauner was governor. What party has been in charge that created the mess we can’t get out of? Who doesn’t change to try and stay competitive, Illinois.

Comment by Arock Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:22 am
Persistence can be a good or bad character trait depending on the situation. As a CEO it is probably a requirement for effective leadership. But in government with coequal branches I would argue that flexibility is a more important trait to possess if one wants to be an effective leader.

Comment by Cubs in '16 Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:29 am
===What party has been in charge that created the mess we can’t get out of? Who doesn’t change to try and stay competitive, Illinois.===

- Arock -

First, “Pat Quinn failed”, so if Pat Quinn failed while governor, than Rauner should be held to the same “Pat Quinn failed” standard… so there’s that.

How about… Since Rauner…

6 credit downgrades

No state budgets

No budgeted higher education funding

$12 billion in debt wits Rauner as governor.

Capiche?

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:35 am
When you’re way out over your skis, it’s better to try to regain your balance than to simply blame gravity for your impending crash. BR refuses to accept that.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 10:37 am
OK… Rauner has CLEARLY signaled to the ILGA exactly what he won’t do. So, if there is to be a budget, it is up to the GA to fill in the blanks he has left for the past three budgets. And, when they do, they need to be prepared to follow through on overrides of his “promised” vetoes. Yellow and Red are not going to help. That will only drive us deeper into recession. Rauner has nothing to loss. Illinois does. It is going to take both D’s and R’s to stand up to him. We cannot wait until 2018.

Comment by Anon221 Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:07 am
“I’m not patient, but I am extremely persistent. … I’m going to stay persistent.”

Yup, he’s going to persist at refusing to perform his constitutionally mandated duty of preparing a balanced budget. His song and dance are getting tiresome.

Comment by IllinoisBoi Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:26 am
It can also be repeated that the Governor is for tax increases if he gets some common sense reforms, which would balance the budget

Democrats just want to raise taxes

That cannot be repeated enough.House Democrats don’t want to reform anything

Comment by Lucky Pierre Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:39 am
===It can also be repeated that the Governor is for tax increases if he gets some common sense reforms, which would balance the budget.===

… and that is utter ignorance on your part, again - Lucky Pierre -, given that Rauner’s phony budget is $4-7 billion out of balance, requiring a tax increase, not optional. This is the first time today in reminding you of this.

===Democrats just want to raise taxes===

Rauner requires a tax increase. So there’s that.

It’s not optional. So, Rauner can’t hold “wants” for something even Rauner requires.

===That cannot be repeated enough.House Democrats don’t want to reform anything.===

They have that agenda-thingy. Rich even had a Post about it, I think you even commented on it…

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:50 am
“It’s frustrating we don’t have a budget. … When I started this job, I was 6-8 and had a full head of hair. It’s hard,” he said with a laugh. …”

Once again he expects us peasants to sympathize with his frustration and laugh with him when he makes lighthearted jokes. He’s created this very grim situation that has no impact on his quality of life, and somehow he thinks we should be interested in how it’s affecting HIS HAIRLINE!?!?

Comment by (Un)Happy Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:53 am
Building and keeping their businesses in IL, partly on the largesse of the public dime.
Then taking their big incomes to low income tax states.
Where’s mine? Here and there.
Maybe they ought to keep all their political donations over there.

Comment by Vole Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 11:59 am
LP@11:39.

Do you mean “reform” or “renege”? Contrary to the what the ILGOP thinks, those words mean two very different things.

Comment by Jocko Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 12:21 pm
LP, tell us more about the common sense in tripling the backlog of bills. And no capital plan. And bleeding higher ed.

Will those actions promote economic growth? Even more than term limits?

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 12:25 pm
“It’s frustrating we don’t have a budget. … When I started this job, I was 6-8 and had a full head of hair. It’s hard,” he said with a laugh. …”

Yeah, so?

Comment by Huh? Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 12:49 pm
Wordslinger please tell us more about how great Illinois economy has done for the past 15 years and the number of people who have left our state because of our poor economy before Rauner was elected

We could just continue doing things as we always have like the Speaker wants and have the downturn continue

Comment by Lucky Pierre Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 1:26 pm
word:

So you just want to keep doing things the same way and have no reforms /s/

I figured I give his response first.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 1:38 pm
“We could just continue doing things as we always have like the Speaker wants and have the downturn continue”

How long must Rauner be governor before he accrues any responsibility for the state of the state? (Feel free to round your answer down to the nearest year)

– MrJM

Comment by @MisterJayEm Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 1:40 pm
==I ran for governor because all of my fellow business builders ==

At least he verified what a lot of us thought. He ran for Governor to help his fellow businessmen. Turned out the job was hard and hasn’t worked out so well.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 1:41 pm
This is one occasion that I believe that Rauner was being honest when he said that he ran for Governor to help business builders. He sure didn’t run for Governor to help the average middle class worker struggling to get ahead or others such as college students or families with special needs children, just to name a few. One thing for sure is he will leave Illinois in a worse place than he found it, I wonder if that will even bother him. One of two things will happen, he will either start negotiating with sincerity or we will not have a budget during his 4 years as Governor.

Comment by The Dude Abides Thursday, Feb 23, 17 @ 4:00 pm
Comic tragedy

Comment by Rabid Friday, Feb 24, 17 @ 7:34 am
I didn’t know those downgrades were so severe on the govenor

Comment by Rabid Friday, Feb 24, 17 @ 7:40 am
I didn’t know a heart takes up so much space

Comment by Rabid Friday, Feb 24, 17 @ 7:47 am
I wish they would just Please pass and sign a budget with the 5% plus income tax increase. I have to get my home finances budget finished up before I file 2016 taxes. Its really hard to keep that refund money and not spend it. I need to know the rate. Ok now back to the real world.

Comment by NorthsideNoMore Friday, Feb 24, 17 @ 8:11 am
Governor “Do Nothing” Rauner will go 0 for 4 on presenting budgets and call it a “Turnaround Agenda” Victory on his way to another state when he crashes and burns here and rightly so!

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 24, 17 @ 8:38 am