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Harder than it looks

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Illinois

* My Sun-Times column takes a look at our state’s lousy predicament…

I’ve been talking about Illinois’ mess lately with an old-timer named Jerry Shea.

Shea has been around forever. He served five terms in the Illinois House, beginning in the early 1960s. He was a majority leader and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s floor leader. He has been on the RTA board of directors, was a member of the the U. of I. board of trustees, taught law classes at John Marshall and has a Statehouse lobbying client list that’s more than a mile long.

Shea knows everybody and remembers everything. But he’s not exactly the type of person who would hang around with “reformers” like Gov. Quinn.

As Shea remembers it, Gov. Richard Ogilvie helped pass the state’s first income tax by agreeing to allow legislators to roll all of their local government pension credits into the General Assembly’s retirement plan. Because lots of legislators worked for the City of Chicago and Cook County, or were former mayors of suburban and Downstate towns, that pension bill secured a whole lot of income tax votes.

Was it what we would now call a corrupt bargain? Sure. But it worked. The state desperately needed the revenues, and if a handful of hacks got a pension bump in the process, well, that’s just the way it had to be done.

Today, that deal would be an abomination, of course. The FBI might even start poking their noses around.

But here we are once again faced with a horrific budget problem and the need for a tax increase and — unlike during Ogilvie’s time — major budget cuts to boot. So, what’s our reform governor to do?

Gov. Quinn rightly recognizes that Illinois is facing two bone-crushing crises at the same time. The first is fiscal — the government is flat broke. The second is ethical — our last two governors got pinched by the feds.

Illinois has something in the neighborhood of $12 billion in red ink to deal with. There’s no way to tax ourselves out of this mess, and there’s no way to fully cut our way out of it, either. The solution has to be a combination of both, plus some borrowing, either from the pension funds or through the bond houses. That three-pronged approach of taxes, cuts and borrowing is exactly how California got out of its deep financial hole this year. But it wasn’t easy.

The governor has appointed a reform commission, which has now proposed all sorts of ideas — some good, some goofy and some in need of tweaking. The “sexiest” stuff revolves around campaign finance reform. The commission wants to cap contributions at the current federal level of $2,400 for individuals and $5,000 for political action committees so we can be as clean as Washington, D.C., is.

Hooray.

The commission also wants to limit the terms of, and cap the fund-raising by, the all-powerful state legislative leaders, who run the Statehouse and raise the money to fund most of their members’ campaigns.

Pressure is building to a fever pitch in the media to pass the commission’s recommendations and clean up government. The governor has said he is in full agreement.

But how do you persuade legislators to raise taxes and cut precious spending programs, and then force them to commit yet another political suicide by capping their campaign contributions and hobbling their legislative leaders so they can’t easily defend themselves against outraged taxpayer/ voters — and get it all done in a way that shuns old-style horse-trading and is completely ethical, moral and aboveboard?

“You can’t do it,” Shea told me Thursday. “There is no way to do it.”

The session ends on May 31. We’re about to see if Shea is right.

* Related…

* Deep deficit demands permanent tax courage : No one wants a tax increase, but Illinois needs it.

* Lawmakers should support pension reform

* Illinois schools: Schools across Illinois freeze salaries for top administrators

* Time for ethics reform law in Illinois?

* Prepare for ethics: All or nothing?

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, May 8, 09 @ 9:53 am

Comments

Ethics????? What’s ethics???? Chicago Politics ethics???? I don’t think so.

Comment by Boscobud Friday, May 8, 09 @ 9:55 am
It doesn’t help that there is an election in a few months and our leaders are trying to one up each other and not let anyone have anything substantial to hang their election hopes on-so Mr. Shea is probably right.

Comment by Phineas J. Whoopee Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:08 am
Shea is right. “You” can’t do it. And “they” won’t do it. The selective act of political terrorism embodied in HB4450 is the first of many bombs to be thrown. All will be meant as distractions from grappling with specific recommendations in the reform commission’s report, and as chits in whatever budget decrees come out of the legislature.

Comment by Captain Flume Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:09 am
12 billion in the red… oy… I honestly don’t know how much longer these unpaid business are going to sit around and wait. When are they going to take the state to court and get the money for their services. And if the state can’t pay, well, then I guess these businesses are going to get the states vehicles, desks, computers, anything of value to recoup the loss from services provided to the state. Now that is what I would call “redistribution of wealth.”

(Sorry to avoid the whole point of this article… it just appears that there is absolutely no viable solution… we either need huge cuts or huge tax increases… or both….)

(And Illinois government will never be ethical… no matter what law is passed….)

Comment by Heartless Libertarian Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:09 am
Those on this blog who are careful watchers and interpreters will be keeping an eye on this process. I will be reading and learning from them. The next few months will be quite telling. I want to have hope that reform is possible in this climate (if not now, when?). It is hard not to be cynical.

Comment by dupage dan Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:33 am
I never thought of this thing in that context—my mind has always thought of reform/budget issues as being two separate threads. Put them together and it sounds totally futile.

So why do it? I mean look, ‘reform’ doesn’t happen in a year. Why not just draft a plan, pick the low hanging fruit now, appease the reformers and get back to the finances which are the real crisis.

Comment by dan l Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:38 am
Illinois may have to get out of the higher education business.That would save a lot of money.

Comment by Steve Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:47 am
The budget has to get done. Ethics? Some regulations will keep things a bit cleaner, but people are either ethical or not. Fix the budget, and then government can worry about policing itself.

Steve, Illinois could get out of higher education, and it’s the right move if we want to be Mississippi.

Comment by Fan of the Game Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:56 am
You bring up California, Rich, but just today that state is saying they’ll be out of money (again) in July if they can’t find ANOTHER $23B. And that’s before Obama threatening to yank all their stimulus money if they touch union wages.

Comment by John Bambenek Friday, May 8, 09 @ 10:57 am
We’re certainly blessed to be living in interesting times.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, May 8, 09 @ 11:04 am
The mindset that old fashioned horse trading is the only way to get things done is what has gotten us in this mess; fiscally and ethically.

The hole will get deeper as long as the voters tolerate it. If and when a time comes where there is too much heat and light, then magic will happen. Just like with Blago.

Comment by BriRei Friday, May 8, 09 @ 11:28 am
Jerry Shea is absolutely correct. Unfortunately campaign finance reform will probably have to be put on the back burner until this State gets a handle on it’s finances.

Comment by Stones Friday, May 8, 09 @ 11:48 am
Well! Jerry Shea & Rich Miller are in agreement: the status quo on reform is the price for fiscal responsibility.

Comment by BannedForLife Friday, May 8, 09 @ 11:53 am
Shea is speaking the obvious truth. It won’t all happen and I am almsot willing to bet that none of it will happen. The roof must absolutely come crashing down inorder to provide even the cover needed to deal with the budget mess. cleaning up government in Illinois?? Illinois was already establishing a reputation for rough and tumble politics in Lincoln’s time. You won’t reverse that culture any time soon, but talking about creates a good diversion from the really critical financial issues.

Comment by Skirmisher Friday, May 8, 09 @ 12:24 pm
I can’t wait for the next noted authority CF trots out in its stop reform now crusade.

Comment by BannedForLife Friday, May 8, 09 @ 4:52 pm
That’s so typical of reformers. Supreme arrogance to the point where all criticism is deemed as heresy.

Bite me, moron.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, May 8, 09 @ 4:58 pm