Escaping the budget hole

You’ve gotta love the state employee unions aligning themselves with Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner: politics and strange bedfellows, you know.

Rauner basically said: “We can pay them. We’ve done it before.” Our state’s lawyer, who is also a likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s daughter, basically said: “No, I don’t think you legally can.”

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger, caught in the middle, asked a judge: “I can pay them, right? Just like we did before?”

The judge essentially said: “Nope. No budget, no pay.” And added that it was the state’s own fault that its computers were too old to separate the federally mandated payments — a known problem since 2007, when we last played Illinois budget chicken.

So to the federal judge we go, Rauner and AFSCME hand-in-hand on appeal.

Folks, instead of spending all this time, energy and taxpayers’ money on lawyers, federal penalties and interest, instead of Rauner and Madigan sticking their thumbs in each others’ eyes, instead of putting our elderly and disabled residents’ care at risk, wouldn’t it be easier to pass Rauner’s five remaining Turnaround reforms and balance that budget?

The July 15 payday approaches. When the political splits hit the fan, don’t forget to blame the guys who spent 30 years getting us into this hole, and not the guy who just showed up with the ladder.

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Escaping the budget hole."