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One of the better descriptions of the new state budget I’ve heard

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* The Daily Herald’s Kerry Lester interviewed retiring Rep. Elaine Nekritz

Q. Are you happy with the budget that passed?

A. I’m happy there is a budget. It doesn’t create opportunities for us to be looking at new innovations. It’s really kind of a maintenance budget.

If it’s even that much.

Go read the whole thing. Good stuff in there.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 2:45 pm

Comments

  1. No consolidation of governments… No gambling expansion…

    Not even the bipartisan stuff got in there…

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 2:53 pm

  2. Succinct. The budget feels good like eating a cheese sandwich after a month of only eating bugs. You take what you can get.

    Comment by Norseman Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 2:54 pm

  3. I keep thinking how much better off we’d be now if the temporary tax increase was made permanent in 2015.

    Our bills paid.
    Our credit rating not in the sewer.
    Pension payments made.

    That would have still been a maintenance budget, but we wouldn’t have destroyed our state just to break even.

    It’s going to cost us a decade of maintenance budgets to address the billions Rauner wasted trying to destroy his political enemies.

    Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 2:58 pm

  4. VanillaMan; Amen

    Comment by Iron Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:01 pm

  5. Well said. Still a lot of work to do.

    ===Not even the bipartisan stuff got in there…===

    I’m not going to stop saying this, “The four year property tax freeze got zero Republican votes.”

    Comment by Ducky LaMoore Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:06 pm

  6. After piling on $10B in unpaid daily operation bills and vivisecting higher ed, what else could it be?

    Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:09 pm

  7. Elaine will be missed; so much unnecessary collateral damage.

    Comment by Dome Gnome Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:10 pm

  8. “No consolidation of governments”

    Umm…SB 3 has been sent to the Governor, and I’m pretty sure it was the language he wanted. (If someone has information to the contrary, please share.)

    Comment by Juice Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:30 pm

  9. ===Umm…SB 3 has been sent to the Governor, and I’m pretty sure it was the language he wanted. (If someone has information to the contrary, please share.)==

    AFAIK, SB3 primarily is directed towards townships and road districts. There needs to be consolidation of park districts, libraries, fire districts, etc.

    Lot of other states have counties manage all of the above instead of individual taxing bodies. Some even have counties manage schools. I would be OK with the county managing all of the above except for the schools.

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:40 pm

  10. “new innovations” - Is that the new term being used for legislative earmarks which became member initiatives once regular people figured out they were mostly just wasteful pork projects adding to the state debt?

    Comment by Jeff Trigg Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:41 pm

  11. Anonymous, I don’t disagree with any of what you said. I just don’t know if that is what the Governor was pushing for. He has talked a pretty big game on reducing the number of units of local government, but all the proposals that I have seen have been pretty timid.

    Comment by Juice Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:46 pm

  12. ==AFAIK, SB3 primarily is directed towards townships and road districts.==

    So, your earlier statement (== No consolidation of governments==) was not true or accurate. Correct?

    Totally understandable you might want to go further than townships and roads. But to make a blanket statement pretending that those existing provisions do not in fact exist is disingenuous, at best.

    As OW would say: With respect.

    Comment by Linus Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 3:57 pm

  13. ==AFAIK, SB3 primarily is directed towards townships and road districts.==

    That kind of stinks. In my county, the township roads are far superior to that of the county…. Maybe we should just dissolve the county government and have townships. LOL

    Comment by Ducky LaMoore Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 4:16 pm

  14. VMan nailed it.

    Comment by walker Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 4:18 pm

  15. ===So, your earlier statement (== No consolidation of governments==) was not true or accurate. Correct?

    Totally understandable you might want to go further than townships and roads. But to make a blanket statement pretending that those existing provisions do not in fact exist is disingenuous, at best.

    As OW would say: With respect.===

    I’ll give you that, “some” consolidation. But still pretty weak IMO.

    Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jul 21, 17 @ 4:19 pm

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