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Shouting into the wind

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* From the Illinois News Network’s story entitled “Lawmakers float various ideas to help shore up Illinois’ budget as deadline looms”…

State Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, said Illinois should cut spending instead of finding ways to increase revenue.

“Don’t talk to me about revenue until you can talk to me about how to control spending and things like that,” Reick said. […]

Reick said one thing lawmakers need to do is reform pension spending “where we’re not paying 25 percent of our budget toward past pension debt, allowing us to figure out how to do that without having to do taxes.”

I took a look at the freshman’s list of bills that he’s introduced so far. No pension reform bills. There were also no bills to reduce other state government spending. But there was at least one bill that would increase state costs a bit…

Provides that, if the amount of the credit for residential real property taxes exceeds the taxpayer’s liability, that amount shall be refunded if the taxpayer is 65 years or older and has a federal adjusted gross income of not more than $50,000.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 9:58 am

Comments

ILGOP: Watch what we say, not what we do.

Comment by Blue Bayou Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:05 am
Mr. Reich will vote on the budget exactly as required, which might be ironic in itself as Rauner contemplates being a governor never to sign a full fiscal year budget his entire term…

… but please, go on.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:07 am
Mr. Reick is clearly putting the challenge to “you” to come to him with ideas to solve this problem he has identified.
I don’t think he suggested in any way that he has any ideas or plans to solve those problems, plans on making any effort to look into these issues or that he would even vote for them if “you” were to bring them to him.

Comment by Michelle Flaherty Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:09 am
I get that lawmakers would need help from others to identify places to cut costs, particularly the agencies, but all this talk as if they are helpless bystanders to the “wasteful” spending is so disingenuous it astounds me they can say it with a straight face.

Comment by Perrid Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:12 am
And exactly how does he plan to legally deal with the past pension debt?

Comment by RNUG Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:15 am
I know where you can cut spending
How about you
Cut the pinstripe patronage
No bid contracts to
IT firms like Deloitte
Consulting firms like McKenzie
And CBRE
Millions and millions saved
Oh wait….
You rather cut the poor, disabled, elderly?
The prepare for a fight
Motivated labor
Are the best canvassers

Comment by Honeybear Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:17 am
I read an article in the NYT the other day about wild dogs attacking and killing children in rural India. It was suggested in the article that the local Hindu politicians contributed to the problem by shutting down slaughter houses to protect cows which are sacred to Hindus, thereby depriving the stray dogs of scraps from slaughtered cows.

The apparent moral is that protecting sacred cows endangers children. That happens here in Illinois.

Forget about “follow the money.” The solution is to stop protecting the sacred cows.

Start with 7,000 units of local government, including 860 school districts.

Comment by Anon III Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:17 am
The Democrats made a choice not to work with Rauner and his policy points. Ideally, no budget will be passed until shortly after Pritzker takes office in 2019. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Comment by Chris Widger Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:20 am
“Rauner’s policy points”
that’s a good one.

someone give Chris Widger a golden horseshoe, i’ve got to get some paper towels to clean up the coffee i just spit out all over my desk.

Comment by Michelle Flaherty Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:27 am
–“Don’t talk to me about revenue until you can talk to me about how to control spending and things like that,” Reick said. […]–

Obviously, Reick is an “idea man.”

Once he comes through with the deep thoughts, he’s entitled to have others do the identifying, proposing, debating, compromising, heavy-lifting and “things like that.”

Probably a waste of time to talk to him at all, once he’s dished out the Big Idea.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:28 am
===The Democrats made a choice not to work with Rauner and his policy points. Ideally, no budget will be passed until shortly after Pritzker takes office in 2019. Live by the sword, die by the sword.===

… and yet, Illinois is currently under a passed budget, a budget vetoed and then overridden by a bipartisan General Assembly to save Illinois from Bruce Rauner’s purposeful destruction, but go on how the Democrats are stoppin’ and holdin’ as the state’s current bipartisan budget is still in effect.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:28 am
Anon III
Outside Greater Chicagoland, how about the Nevada / Florida model? 1 school district per county.

Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:32 am
Because the Democrats are not change people and truly believe Illinois needs zero reform of our record setting units of local governments or business environment.

They believe all we need to fix Illinois is even higher taxes on successful individuals and businesses.

Comment by Lucky Pierre Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:34 am
The Democrats chose not to work with Rauner and his policy points……

Or you could say the Rauner chose not to deall with the reality that he has to work with Democrats to get anything done. He’s in the minority and evidently can’t count. He could have had any number of small victories but chose instead to demand capitulation over compromise. In the end even members of his own party chose to vote against his unrealistic “policies.” To him only one policy matters, breaking the unions and collective bargaining.

Comment by Old and In The Way Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:36 am
=== “Lawmakers float various ideas to help shore up Illinois’ budget as deadline looms”… ===

LOL. Lawmake spews typical phony baloney to enhance political career. There I fixed it for you.

Comment by Norseman Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:52 am
Smitty

Gee I bet no one ever thought of that idea. You may want to actually do a bit of research on this before commenting. Just who is going to submit the bill to strip local community control over school districts in downstate Illinois? Certainly not the local Republican reps and senators, not if they are running for re-election. This has been going on since at least 1958 when it was first brought up. Until you understand that local control is non negotiable in most small towns and communities you aren’t going to get far. Remember who is funding these small districts primarily, the local communities not the state. As HL Menken once said, “For every complex problem there is a simple solution and it’s generally wrong.” Not saying it cannot or should not be done but that it is a very complex and emotional issue for small towns and communities. Consolidation is seen as a death sentence in many small towns.

Comment by Old and In The Way Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:52 am
===They believe all we need to fix Illinois is even higher taxes on successful individuals and businesses.===

That’s a lie. We support taxing unsuccessful individuals and businesses too.

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:53 am
“Lucky Pierre”, you getting taking talking points from @GrantWehrli?

@GrantWehrli -Speaker Madigan’s plan for the future of Illinois: No transparent budget process. No reforms. No cuts to the budget. MORE TAXES #twill #fail

April 27, 2018, 10:01am

I knew his twitter has sounded more and more familiar.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 10:54 am
There’s that phrase again. “Pension reform”. Why not say you want to reduce pensions to the point public employees retire without any pension at all. Tha’s what the legislature wants anyway.

Comment by Generic Drone Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 11:04 am
Smitty that is a great starting point for government reform in Illinois. The state should mandate that or not disburse school funds.

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 12:41 pm
===Outside Greater Chicagoland, how about the Nevada / Florida model? 1 school district per county.===

Please, please please bring this up to any downstate republican or dem and provide video. Would pay cash money to hear their responses to this well thought out and reasoned proposal.

Comment by Lester Holt’s Mustache Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:04 pm
==1 school district per county==

You aren’t going to eliminate a ton of costs by doing that. You’ll still have to have multiple school buildings spread throughout the county.

Besides, people in Illinois value local control.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:06 pm
“things like that.” Profiles in courage young padawan.

Comment by Steve Rogers Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:06 pm
Yep, put up or shut up. You’ve been elected to lead so to merely shoot off your mouth without a solution is less than helpful. But why should we worry, the Dems don’t seem to care either.

Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:13 pm
“Local control” is just more apologetics for the kleptocracy. It’s not like illinois schools are renowned as being the best in the country. Illinois has very ordinary schools comparatively. They are expensive though.

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:19 pm
CPS is locally controlled. It has lost something like 20,000 students over the last 5 years, how many schools have been closed in that time?

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:20 pm
===CPS is locally controlled. It has lost something like 20,000 students over the last 5 years, how many schools have been closed in that time?===

Use the google.

Take all afternoon looking, tomorrow too if needed…

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:22 pm
==“Local control” is just more apologetics for the kleptocracy==

lol. Yeah, all of those individuals in those towns are part of the giant “kleptocracy” conspiracy. You don’t have any idea what you are talking about.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:26 pm
==1 school district per county==

There are 102 counties in Illinois. Excluding Cook and three collar counties would still leave a huge number of districts. But consolidation of districts does not necessarily mean consolidating the schools within the district. If the existing 860 districts were consolidated to fewer districts, the number and location of schools within each consolidated district would be up to the local school board of the consolidated district.

Local district school superintendents making multiple six figure salaries find lots of reasons why consolidation is a bad idea. They keep carping about loss of local control, despite the fact that local control will continue.

If each Illinois school district was equal in enrollment to, or larger than, Plainfield School District 202 – ADA 26,208 – the fourth largest district in the State, then Illinois could operate with sixty or fewer school districts. Each with all the local control that Painfield 202, or Indian Prairie 204, or Rockford 205 has.

Comment by Anon III Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:36 pm
“Local control” … ah, that explains and makes economical 3 separate elementary school districts feeding into Lincoln High School District. /s

Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:39 pm
We could stop being a social democracy. Think of all money we would save

Comment by Oh no Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 1:54 pm
===how many schools have been closed in that time?===

More than 50. It’s been in the news.

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:01 pm
Sorry, since 2014. CPS has lost 20,000 students. How many schools have been closed since then?

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:04 pm
===How many schools have been closed since then?===

Asked and answered…

Please, stop spamming, add to the discussions

Thanks.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:06 pm
Almost no cps schools have closed since 2014.

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:22 pm
===Almost no cps schools have closed since 2014.===

Almost no, or no? I’m confused. Almost no is not no, no?

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:26 pm
Now if we get consolidate school districts to the same proportion as California has, we could save some real money. We would have something like 500 less districts.

Comment by Ron Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:38 pm
Is it me… the irony of the name of this Post… “Shouting Into the Wind”… and… - Ron - and his comment(s)

A little too ironic, dontcha think?

To the Post,

The property tax credits that the blue states will feel the most pain could lead to electoral issues for suburban GOP congresscritters if the Dems can get traction on this and get voters to clearly understand the simplicity to it.

Will they?

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:39 pm
One district per county would be in a word a Hot Mess. While there are places it would work and save some money on administrative over-head there are plenty of places it would fail miserably. look no furter than CPS for a loss of control. To big to manage and expensive without the results.

Comment by NorthsideNoMore Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:40 pm
===One district per county would be in a word a Hot Mess.===

That’s two words, lol. But you’re not wrong.

I grew up in Kankakee County. If the entire county was one school district, how would white families ensure that few black students attended the schools white parents send their kids to?

If you know much about Kankakee, you’ll know that whites moved west to Limestone and Bonfield, or north to Bourbonnais and Manteno. If all of these were under one school district, it would be much harder to keep blacks segregated as they are now in Kankakee schools.

Local control indeed.

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 2:56 pm
“==“Local control” is just more apologetics for the kleptocracy==” Then you agree that Rauner’s “Enterprise Zones” had nothing to do with “Local Control.”

Comment by Skeptic Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 3:02 pm
Silly Skeptic, turning around someone’s words (and making perfect sense) doesn’t work on extremist conservatives.

And I would rather not have my schools be like the schools in all of these states that are striking. My aunt lives in Arizona, and she made less money in her 20th year of work than a 1st-year teacher makes here. It isn’t enough to live on, and that is un-American. No one working full-time in a job that requires a college degree (and often advanced degrees) should have to take a second job to support a family.

Comment by Travel Guy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 5:19 pm
Anon III, if you made every district the size of Plainfield or larger do you know how big geographically some downstate districts would be? When consolidation is discussed there needs to be thought to how long do we want kids as young as 5 on a bus and how many schools would actually be shuttered.

Now when it comes to grade and high school districts I think a push should be made to consolidate into unit districts, particularly for single school districts.

Comment by MyTwoCents Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 5:22 pm
MyTwoCents -
So you want rural living to be subsidized?

Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 5:42 pm
Unit districts make more sense than arbitrarily specifying a size based on student population and ignoring the geography.

Comment by RNUG Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 6:31 pm
I bet he doesn’t have a single proposal- not even an IDEA on what to cut or how to fix these problems. Crapping on people is easy; coming up with new ideas to fix the problem is hard. Be a leader.

Comment by Oy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 11:01 pm
Honeybear I am glad you have a play to cut millions, but the budget shortfall is in the tens of BILLIONS. Ain’t so easy, huh??

Comment by Oy Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 11:04 pm
I volunteer for helping to cut $1.2 billion. I won’t be very popular after the fact. …..but I don’t care.

Comment by BlueDogDem Thursday, May 24, 18 @ 11:22 pm
–I volunteer for helping to cut $1.2 billion. I won’t be very popular after the fact. …..but I don’t care.–

So do it.

You say things, to feed your sad need for attention, but then you never deliver.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, May 25, 18 @ 1:00 am
A 5% cut across the board is a reasonable starting place. Here’s your budget, deal with it. This is what happens in real life.

Comment by Ron Friday, May 25, 18 @ 8:13 am
Ron -
“reasonable starting place” “real life” … federal court orders might disagree.

Comment by Smitty Irving Friday, May 25, 18 @ 8:27 am