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* The Illinois Policy Institute’s Diana Sroka Rickert writing in the Tribune…
Bruce Rauner barnstormed his way to the governor’s office by promising to “shake up Springfield.” Now it seems he has a new mantra: Don’t rock the boat.
A bipartisan cartel of Illinois’ longest-serving and most tone-deaf politicians are plotting what they call a budget “grand bargain.” Unsurprisingly, the lynchpin of the proposal is a mega income tax increase. The plan contains few fixes to our broken state government.
Translation: We pay more for the same old, same old.
Once upon a time, this was the kind of thing Gov. Rauner would rail against. Career politicians cutting deals that perpetuate, rather than eradicate, Illinois’ deep-rooted problems.
Instead, Rauner has set up camp on the sidelines.
Go read the whole thing, including the quote in this post’s headline.
I’ll open comments on Tuesday.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Feb 13, 17 @ 4:16 pm
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
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Either this is…
IPI going way off the reservation and forgetting who is their Patron…
Griffin and Uihlein are getting impatient and are both fearful that Rauner, “one of their own” is forgetting who he is, and that’s not another politician that turned on guys like Griffin, Uihlein, and himself, when it “mattered”…
Rauner, Uihlein, Griffin, and Diana Rauner are pulling a ruse, using IPI to “attack” but left-handedly reminding the Raunerites in the GA “We control the message, you don’t. Do as we say”…
Or lastly, the IPI is just so oblivious to everything around them, they actually think they have a voice that can be independent to their donors and attacking them works in some twisted way.
Those seem to be the angles, “but you know what”, none lead to a budget, “and you know what”, even if this James Bond, attack the leader to seem thoughtful, it’s clumsy to the mission, “and you know what”, it reminds me that the Turnaround Agenda is just too important to some, no matter who gets hurt, or what gets destroyed.
IPI is pathetic. Then again, all tools masquerading as thoughtful think tanks are. That’s why they tools.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 7:27 am
The secret is out!!!! Madigan controls IPI
Comment by Wow Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 7:49 am
It’s great to have a new holiday. Now, in addition to Independence Day on July 4, we have “Try to Look Independent Day” on February 14, starring both the rank-and-file House Democrats and the Illinois Policy Institute. /s
Comment by Earnest Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 7:51 am
I think Rickert misses the point. Isn’t the Governor “setting up camp on the sidelines a decision not to support the Grand bargain. Wouldn’t a Governor who supports the Grand Bargain tell us so and not just generally and phonily, but the details, like for example “I support a tax increase of this much, or I support the following proposals relating to workers comp reform…” Until I hear things like this from the Governor, contrary to Rickert, I don’t think the Governor is not “railing against” the grand bargain. His silence is speaking volumes and is being heard by legislators. Maybe the Governor breaks his silence tomorrow?
Comment by The Real Just Me Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 7:54 am
This all seems a little too convenient — allowing the IPI to assert its “independence” and not be painted as just a Rauner tool, while also creating the impression that Bruce really is “on the sidelines” and not actively working behind the scenes to scuttle the Senate deal.
But believing those things would require us to believe that both Rauner and the IPI have fundamentally changed who they are. And that seems, at best, unlikely.
Comment by Not Buying It Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:10 am
Biting the hand that feeds it?
Or maybe attempting some bizarre world version of Speaker Madigan’s apocryphal 3D chess game?
Comment by titan Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:15 am
IPI is doing a bit; it’s ooda-loopery.
Rauner now wants to be publicly portrayed as a moderatin’, compromisin’ Uncle Fuzzy (Madigan is the bad guy, remember?).
This rather mild “rebuke” from his attack dogs serves that purpose.
But as the House GOP members point out in the other thread, actions speak louder than words. Rauner allegedly sat on the sidelines, while the attack dogs he’s invested millions in muscled GOP legislators that he’s also invested millions in.
Who believes that? Who believes Rauner didn’t direct IPI/Proft/Chamber to intimidate GOP legislators? All those millions he’s invested, and he’s hands-off? It’s ridiculous.
What’s IPI complaining about anyway? They got the result they wanted. Their ooda-loop disorienting disinformation is just grifters griftin.’
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:18 am
That feeling when even the IPI thinks you’re a failure…
Comment by A Non Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:28 am
I thought this was something new until Diana closed with “Rauner should use his budget address to lay out a bold, if difficult, plan…”
To Bruce’s credit, it’s pretty “bold” of him to renege on social services contracts & de-fund higher education and say he cares about Illinois.
Comment by Jocko Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:45 am
You have to remember, for certain folks in the IPI world, this was always about the personal income tax rate. Everything else is just done to support that overall goal.
Comment by Ggeo Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:50 am
Just maybe they thought Rauner was a Trump type and they really expected him to completely disrupt Illinois for 4 years.
Nothing as vindictive as a Cause Scorned.
Comment by winners and losers Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:51 am
Meh, probably a nice play for Rauner to show he is being attacked from the left and the right.
#AlwaysTheVictim
Comment by Dee Lay Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:52 am
Winnetka has a leash law. Bruce should tighten his.
Comment by Michelle Flaherty Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:54 am
Good on Rickert & IPI. The Gov needs to quit with the rope-a-dope and lead.
Comment by Deft Wing Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:56 am
===Unsurprisingly, the lynch pin of the proposal is a mega income tax increase.===
Gosh, if only the hardcore fiscal conservative governor would just have accepted whatever budget the democrats gave him, instructed his agencies to cut 15% off of it, and took the arrows he claimed he could take, maybe the state would not have added 7 billion in unpaid bills in his two years. Maybe….
Comment by Ducky LaMoore Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 8:58 am
“Look, guys, the Policy Institute is attacking me too and telling me to hold out too. Surely you don’t think I’m behind the campaign attacking you guys?”
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:00 am
If the Governor was gonna play hardball he should have done it the first year and not let the kids go back to school. Everything since then has been the politics of a man who can’t figure out if he is Philo Beddoe or Harry Callahan.
Comment by Saluki Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:04 am
–Meh, probably a nice play for Rauner to show he is being attacked from the left and the right.–
Exactly. The play going forward is, “Madigan’s the extreme guy, unwilling to compromise, not Rauner.”
It’s all p.r. fiction from the hired help.
If these IPI alleged free-marketers had a real beef with Rauner, they would have gone after him on the Exelon nuke deal he brokered that will cost consumers hundreds of millions a year more for what they’re getting already.
Instead, crickets.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:05 am
To continue the metaphor, the IPI is Clyde.
Comment by Saluki Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:06 am
Rickert says “our state is on the verge of a total economic collapse.”
But then, she says that Rauner should put on his Carthart and drive around in his trash can van. Wait. What? How is encouraging more of this fake persona (by a BILLIONAIRE) going to help a state on the verge of collapse? Goodness, that’s messed up.
All it does is encourage one of Rauner’s problems — his lack of integrity.
Btw, he squandered any political capital he had long ago. All he has is his money. We all know it.
Diana Rickert should know better. The GOP never had the IL legislature. Her statements, which never acknowledge this, are childish and delusional “shake up Springfield” rhetoric will never come to pass. Rauner has made too big of mess with all his misguided shaking.
(I have to add that it is the very definition of an immoral framework to use people as means. Her entire argument is condoning and promoting more damage to individuals/business/Illinois in order to attain some crazy uber-rich-people goal that we haven’t quite yet figured out. Sick.)
Comment by cdog Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:06 am
Sounds to me like the IPI is trying to set Bruce up as the compromise candidate he isn’t for 2018. Republicans and Democratic party’s know how short voters memories are and he could do a lot more damage to this state and Unions if he had 4 more years.
Comment by So tired of political hacks Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:09 am
The only way this works or is true is if you believe the premise that IPI is honestly attacking Rauner.
Once it’s pointed out this isn’t the case, and if anything it’s phony heat to give Rauner cover, it reads embarrassingly funny, like reading a joke with a deadpan face. Everyone laughs at the delivery of the absurd.
“Rauner’s own ‘think tank’ is attacking Rauner for allegedly looking for a compromise”
Say that with a straight face and the laughs get a bit louder.
It’s all about presentation, lol
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:11 am
–Rickert says “our state is on the verge of a total economic collapse.”–
How does that kind of stupid hysteria make it into a newspaper?
Whoops, it’s the tronc edit board — my bad.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:15 am
It’s clear to the bond houses that Illinois needs more revenue. But IPI is being consistent in its opposition to any income tax hike. Just as I expect Proft will be. It’s actually to their credit that they don’t have a double standard that gives a pass to Republicans who raise taxes.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:26 am
I am with Oswego Willy on this.
It is a ham-handed attempt to dupe us all into believing there is some sort of daylight between Rauner and the IPI, that they are somehow independent.
Suddenly, Rauner is no longer responsible for the IPI and Chamber attacks on Republican members.
I will believe it when the IPI pulls its paid attacks on GOP members and turns their paid guns on Rauner. When the robocalls and social media posts start attacking Rauner, then we will have some evidence that things have changed.
Comment by Free Set of Steak Knives Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:28 am
Tired of the top 1% telling everyone the state is broke, it’s the 99% of Illinois citizens being crushed by this impasse not the top 1 % their income is fine just ask Bruce. Illinois is the 5th largest economy in the us. There is plenty of$ just staying at the top.
Comment by So tired of political hacks Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:31 am
At what point do the Trib and IPI just merge to save cost and eliminate redundancy? IPONC
Comment by The Captain Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:34 am
Basically, IPI is doubling down on back to square one, “my way or the highway on reforms.”
Here is the one thing IPI got right: “Rauner should release a plan to do what he promised…”. Give us a plan to debate and vote on. You want cuts? Put them in a bill. N ever has. Never will.
Progress being made on the grand bargain? I predict todays
speech will sabotage it by expanding the list of gotta-haves. Again.
Comment by Langhorne Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:41 am
===Translation: We pay more for the same old, same old.===
Am I correct in saying that the IPI wants Illinois to solve its very serious financial problems by means of spending cuts only? Is this the way the IPI wants Rauner to “shake up Springfield” rather than continue with the “same old, same old”?
Comment by Hit or Miss Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:44 am
I bet no questions on Rauner’s ties to IPI et. al. will make it through the Facebookie thingee “firewall” today. Commenters on that feed need to call him out on this over and over again. And the real press needs to push all and every button even if all they may get is a “persistent and rascally” smirk from Rauner. I’m sure he’ll play the part of the concerned but competitive before compassion victim card while he answers canned questions today. IPI’s “opinion” piece here is just cover for that ploy.
Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:47 am
On WIND AM 560 Dan Proft also ripped on the Grand Bargain and got into a testy argument with “statehousechick” McQuerin of the Trib over this article on his morning show.
Rauner signals a willingness to compromise and the self-proclaimed base of his party turns on him. Radogno sticks her neck out amid threats of being taken out. Cullerton sticks his neck out and is feeling heat from his base. Durkin seems to be sticking with Rauner.
Which leaves us with Madigan who permits a show of “independence” from a part of his caucus that had a chance to display true independence and punted last month while he gets what he wants, a budget that solidifies the current status quo.
Profit cited a study that personal income grew less than1 percent over a decade of 2002-2012, less than one half the national average. Anyone have an idea which study he was talking about?
Comment by Louis G Atsaves Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:54 am
Oswego Willy is right. This is another IPIRauner sham. IPI and Rauner are one in the same. They think Republican voters are stupid.
Comment by anonymous Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 9:57 am
Word, although no one loves hyperbole more than me, Excessus Regina, I have to assert that the state government is indeed economically collapsing. I would even say that we have collapsed but people don’t know it yet. They won’t know it until the first major missed payment. It’s coming.
The governors people are sweating like sinners in church over every word of this speech. It’s so dicey because the wrong word could bring the blame back to Rauner and the while thing could collapse.
This was always a deal with the devil at the crossroads that didn’t work out.
The devil is here to collect already.
Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 10:01 am
=Louis G Atsaves=
He was likely referring to this Pew study
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/indiana-personal-income-has-grown-twice-as-fast-as-illinois-over-recession-era/
Comment by answer Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 10:04 am
Louis — I hate to break it to you:
Those WWE matches are all fiction, too.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 10:11 am
Sometimes you need to take a trip to Palm Springs and refocus on the objectives that have been set out for you by the Koch brothers.
Idealistic nonsense with unattainable goals on paper for tax dodging oligarchs.
Comment by Chicago 20 Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 10:16 am
Oh - Louis G Atsaves -, LOL…
Let’s begin here…
===Rauner signals a willingness to compromise===
Rauner’s State of the State, which I applauded, signaled that willingness to passively no do his job but asking that work continues for a better chance. Ok… then… here’s where the delivery of the jokes need to be deadpan, for full comic effect…
===…and the self-proclaimed base of his party turns on him.===
Rauner runs the IPI, Proft, all these alleged “base” speakers. Rauner, and Diana Rauner too, are funding, of have funded these groups, and now they turn on Rauner? This is embarrassing only if you know your in on the joke. Continuing…
===Radogno sticks her neck out amid threats of being taken out.===
… and where was Rauner, less his speech in the Well of the House? The groups Rauner, Uihlein, and Griffin fund attack SGOP members. Why? It isn’t to help, lol
===Cullerton sticks his neck out and is feeling heat from his base.===
Why wouldn’t he? He’s trying to find a common ground, cobbling 30. Seeing that Raunerites keep panning this cooperation, why help with cover when it feels like it will blow up because of a passive governor under-cutting it.
===Durkin seems to be sticking with Rauner.===
Durkin saw how Rauner’s groups went after her, so of course he “learned”, lol
Your comment is only remotely comical if anyone believes IPI and Proft aren’t controlled by Rauner’s millions. Yeah, um, “ok”, lol
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 10:18 am
If Rauner and his surrogates spent half as much energy governing, we’d have a balanced, functioning budget and Illinois might well be on the road to a strong economic recovery.
But alas, they are far more interested in keeping the plates spinning in the air until such time that they can do what they came here to do: Pulverize the Democratic Party (by enacting his agenda in full, thereby paralyzing organized labor) and/or crush state government itself (by suffocating funding for social and human services, higher education, and other core functions).
Seriously, people. Rauner DOES NOT WANT a budget unless he can first accomplish one or both of those objectives – imperil the Democrats’ ability to contest the plutocrats’ efforts to have their way with taxes, regulations, etc., or shrink the government to the point where they can “drown it in the bathtub,” or both.
The idea that IPI, after two solid years of backing Rauner’s every breath (Thank you, sir, may I have another!), is suddenly exercising a modicum of independence, is ludicrous on its face.
Comment by Louis Capricious Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 11:15 am
– state government is indeed economically collapsing. –
State government is in deliberate fiscal collapse, which is certainly bad for the state economy.
But the state is not on the “verge of a total economic collapse” as the hysterical grifters at IPI are insisting.
I don’t even know where that kind of Romper Room Bolshevism comes from, in which state government is the dominant and controlling dynamic for the economy, for good or ill.
You won’t find it in any economics scholarship.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Feb 14, 17 @ 11:51 am