Illinois Budget Impasse

[anvi]

The state budget impasse in Illinois continues.  Things are progressively getting tougher for service providers, state-employee health care plans, students with MAP grants and universities.  Starting to worry about whether I'll have a job in July...

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/illinois-faculty-and-students-starting-to-feel-the-hurt-as/article_3eefda4e-c741-5465-acdf-7b33472bf98a.html

[Miles]

Its frustrating that this mess wouldn't be happening if the People's Champion was still in office.

[user12345]

This is what happens when you elect a Republican governor and a super majority Democratic legislature.

[Miles]

This is what happens when you elect a Republican governor and a super majority Democratic legislature.

I think Hogan and Baker will do quite well, though. The sooner IL can get rid of this hack, the better.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

This is what happens when you gerrymander the legislature, reelect Mike Madigan as Speaker, and attempt (unsuccessfully) to pass a bill cynically designed to limit the governor's power.

That being said, Quinn was a terrible governor and the state can't afford to go back to that. I don't regret endorsing Rauner. It's time someone stood up to Madigan and elects not to blink until the state is fundamentally changed.

[Gass3268]

Thank God for the Illinois Legislature.

[Higgs]

Its frustrating that this mess wouldn't be happening if the People's Champion was still in office.

>thinking Pat Quinn would've been any better

[user12345]

This is what happens when you elect a Republican governor and a super majority Democratic legislature.

I think Hogan and Baker will do quite well, though. The sooner IL can get rid of this hack, the better.

Hogan and Baker are governors of states that function unlike Illinois. They had a much better chance before they even did anything as governor where as Raurner was screwed the instant he was elected.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is what happens when you elect a Republican governor and a super majority Democratic legislature.

More specifically, this is what happens when Democratic voters don't bother to turn out.

[Ebsy]

Hopefully Rauner is crushed.

[Landslide Lyndon]

This is what happens when you elect a Republican plutocrat governor and a super majority Democratic legislature.

Fixed.

This is what happens when you gerrymander the legislature, reelect Mike Madigan as Speaker, and attempt (unsuccessfully) to pass a bill cynically designed to limit the governor's power.

That being said, Quinn was a terrible governor and the state can't afford to go back to that. I don't regret endorsing Rauner. It's time someone stood up to Madigan and elects not to blink until the state is fundamentally changed.

MODERATE HERO ALERT!!!

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Well, the Fed Govt has cut heavily on the spending side due to sequester. Bill Daley should of been allowed to run, eventhough he wasnt the most popular guy to take Quinn on.

Hopefully, Dems have a contested primary, instead of Quinn, who has annonced he is running or Dems will find the.selves back in the situation, Lisa Madigan isnt running.

Rauner would only reinforce the district lines that we have now, he wouldnt do that much damage to House Dems in 2020, except lose Bill Foster.

[muon2]

The impasse is made more complicated by the Dem supermajority. All sides know that some additional revenue is needed. The Dems say they want to restore the temporary income tax hike that expired last year and make it permanent (Quinn proposed that in 2014). Rauner says he'll sign a bill for more revenue if some of his reforms are adopted. The Dems say they can't support the reforms. Rauner then says, fine, pass the tax hike over my veto, since you have a supermajority. But the Dems can't actually muster a supermajority for a tax hike, so everyone is back at square one.

[Torie]

The impasse is made more complicated by the Dem supermajority. All sides know that some additional revenue is needed. The Dems say they want to restore the temporary income tax hike that expired last year and make it permanent (Quinn proposed that in 2014). Rauner says he'll sign a bill for more revenue if some of his reforms are adopted. The Dems say they can't support the reforms. Rauner then says, fine, pass the tax hike over my veto, since you have a supermajority. But the Dems can't actually muster a supermajority for a tax hike, so everyone is back at square one.

What faction of the Dems in the legislature, and from where, are refusing to vote for an override of Rauner's veto?  What happens if no budget is passed? Is there some point in the timeline when a last minute deal will most likely be cut?  Often that is the only time the players reveal their cards, at the very last moment, because they think that is when they get the best deal, hoping the other side blinks first.

[Bojack Horseman]

As I've said before, the Democrats' slogan for the 2018 gubernatorial election should be, "Shut down Rauner, take back Illinois."

[muon2]

The impasse is made more complicated by the Dem supermajority. All sides know that some additional revenue is needed. The Dems say they want to restore the temporary income tax hike that expired last year and make it permanent (Quinn proposed that in 2014). Rauner says he'll sign a bill for more revenue if some of his reforms are adopted. The Dems say they can't support the reforms. Rauner then says, fine, pass the tax hike over my veto, since you have a supermajority. But the Dems can't actually muster a supermajority for a tax hike, so everyone is back at square one.

What faction of the Dems in the legislature, and from where, are refusing to vote for an override of Rauner's veto?  What happens if no budget is passed? Is there some point in the timeline when a last minute deal will most likely be cut?  Often that is the only time the players reveal their cards, at the very last moment, because they think that is when they get the best deal, hoping the other side blinks first.

There are three suburban House Dems who represent well-off districts that have rejected constitutional amendments to go to a progressive income tax, which also required a supermajority. The House Dems have an exact supermajority so even one defection scuttles an override. This happened last Sep when there was an attempt to override a veto of a bill that stripped the Gov of much of his authority to negotiate labor contracts. One Chicago Dem skipped the vote and killed the override.

May 31 is the constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a budget with a simple majority. Just before that deadline last year Rauner reduced his lengthy demands to just two: property tax relief and workers compensation reform. The summer was spent with weekly votes and hearings by the House Dems showing they reject those two proposals. The Senate President has offered compromises on those issues, but the Speaker has not engaged on them. Then when vetoes came up in the fall for overrides (a dozen or so beyond the multiple budget bills), the Speaker couldn't get his caucus together. Stalemate.

[Torie]

The impasse is made more complicated by the Dem supermajority. All sides know that some additional revenue is needed. The Dems say they want to restore the temporary income tax hike that expired last year and make it permanent (Quinn proposed that in 2014). Rauner says he'll sign a bill for more revenue if some of his reforms are adopted. The Dems say they can't support the reforms. Rauner then says, fine, pass the tax hike over my veto, since you have a supermajority. But the Dems can't actually muster a supermajority for a tax hike, so everyone is back at square one.

What faction of the Dems in the legislature, and from where, are refusing to vote for an override of Rauner's veto?  What happens if no budget is passed? Is there some point in the timeline when a last minute deal will most likely be cut?  Often that is the only time the players reveal their cards, at the very last moment, because they think that is when they get the best deal, hoping the other side blinks first.

There are three suburban House Dems who represent well-off districts that have rejected constitutional amendments to go to a progressive income tax, which also required a supermajority. The House Dems have an exact supermajority so even one defection scuttles an override. This happened last Sep when there was an attempt to override a veto of a bill that stripped the Gov of much of his authority to negotiate labor contracts. One Chicago Dem skipped the vote and killed the override.

May 31 is the constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a budget with a simple majority. Just before that deadline last year Rauner reduced his lengthy demands to just two: property tax relief and workers compensation reform. The summer was spent with weekly votes and hearings by the House Dems showing they reject those two proposals. The Senate President has offered compromises on those issues, but the Speaker has not engaged on them. Then when vetoes came up in the fall for overrides (a dozen or so beyond the multiple budget bills), the Speaker couldn't get his caucus together. Stalemate.

So Illinois can just do without a budget forever?  If that happens, is one just on cruise control, going at the same fiscal speed in the same direction? Who was the Chicago Democrat who bailed on the labor contract issue? One would not think of the city of Chicago as the location for the rogue Democrat? Was that person from the Lincoln Park area or something?

[muon2]

The impasse is made more complicated by the Dem supermajority. All sides know that some additional revenue is needed. The Dems say they want to restore the temporary income tax hike that expired last year and make it permanent (Quinn proposed that in 2014). Rauner says he'll sign a bill for more revenue if some of his reforms are adopted. The Dems say they can't support the reforms. Rauner then says, fine, pass the tax hike over my veto, since you have a supermajority. But the Dems can't actually muster a supermajority for a tax hike, so everyone is back at square one.

What faction of the Dems in the legislature, and from where, are refusing to vote for an override of Rauner's veto?  What happens if no budget is passed? Is there some point in the timeline when a last minute deal will most likely be cut?  Often that is the only time the players reveal their cards, at the very last moment, because they think that is when they get the best deal, hoping the other side blinks first.

There are three suburban House Dems who represent well-off districts that have rejected constitutional amendments to go to a progressive income tax, which also required a supermajority. The House Dems have an exact supermajority so even one defection scuttles an override. This happened last Sep when there was an attempt to override a veto of a bill that stripped the Gov of much of his authority to negotiate labor contracts. One Chicago Dem skipped the vote and killed the override.

May 31 is the constitutional deadline for the legislature to pass a budget with a simple majority. Just before that deadline last year Rauner reduced his lengthy demands to just two: property tax relief and workers compensation reform. The summer was spent with weekly votes and hearings by the House Dems showing they reject those two proposals. The Senate President has offered compromises on those issues, but the Speaker has not engaged on them. Then when vetoes came up in the fall for overrides (a dozen or so beyond the multiple budget bills), the Speaker couldn't get his caucus together. Stalemate.

So Illinois can just do without a budget forever?  If that happens, is one just on cruise control, going at the same fiscal speed in the same direction? Who was the Chicago Democrat who bailed on the labor contract issue? One would not think of the city of Chicago as the location for the rogue Democrat? Was that person from the Lincoln Park area or something?

The federal government has gone a number of years without a full annual budget, arguably for the five years leading up to the December 2015 agreement. IL is only constitutionally required to appropriate no more funds than the anticipated revenue. The legislature has often skirted this clause by overappropriating then expecting the gov to make the cuts to bring it into balance. Only twice in the last nine years did the legislature actually appropriate its general funds within the anticipated revenue.

Last year Rauner refused to accept an unconstitutional budget and vetoed all but the K-12 education bill. K-12 survived in part because it was under his requested amount. There are some continuing appropriation items that happen annually without legislation including bond and pension payments and some transfers to local governments. Last summer a number of judicial decrees forced spending on employee salaries and certain federally mandated programs at the prior year amounts.

Together 90% of the state was funded and that pretty much accounts for all the anticipated revenue. That leaves a hole for about 4 G$ in programs that aren't appropriated. The biggest two unappropriated items are higher education and those services not covered by judicial decrees.

[Torie]

What a mess.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

What a mess.

Sounds less messy than PA's budget impasse.

[RINO Tom]

As I've said before, the Democrats' slogan for the 2018 gubernatorial election should be, "Shut down Rauner, take back Illinois."

Yeah, we were just doing so well before Rauner.

LOL, IL is a hot mess, and the legislature won't let Rauner do a thing about it.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Abolish Illinois

[Green Line]

We tried it the Democrats way for the past 14 years with full Democratic control of the legislature and governors office.  How did that turn out?  The state is collapsing under its own debt and Quinn and co. did nothing but push off armageddon over and over again with quick fixes that only exacerbated the problems the state is facing.  The voters kicked him out last year and elected someone promising reform.  Since that time the Democrats in the legislature have done NOTHING Rauner has asked for, blocking him at every single opportunity.  They think the voters are too dumb to realize that Rauner hasn't actually gotten the opportunity to implement any of the things he was elected to do. 

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

George Ryan started boworring from pensions in the first place. But, most of the Blago years weren't fruitful, and Quinn got in, there was this mass debt from his administration. We got an AG that is waiting to right time to run, but if it is anybody but Quinn Dems have a good chance in 2018.

Dems arent gonna go for term limits that take their own power away from them.

[muon2]

Borrowing from the pensions went back well before Ryan. In the 1960's there was a suit over it and because of that case language was added to the 1970 constitution to guarantee pension benefits. The language was taken almost verbatim from the NY constitution and subsequently AZ adopted the same language.

In 1970 the pensions were only funded at about the same level as today. When the legislature went back to shorting payments to the pension funds, the court said that only the benefit was guaranteed not payments into the funds. The reference was to debate at the 1970 con con where the statement was made that if the fund got to zero the state would have to directly pay to retirees rather than have the fund pay. That led to the 1995 law that created a statutory plan of payments to the funds so that they would be fully funded in 2045.

A statute can be changed by a statute so for two years during the Blago administration the pension law was overridden to take a holiday from the required payments. Needless to say that caused a balloon in the unfunded pension debt a decade later. Blago also sold bonds to make the pension payments which increased the overall debt load associated with the pensions. Quinn also sold bonds in his first two years to make pension payments. The result today is the largest unfunded pension liability in the US with the strictest guarantee for pension benefits.

One bright spot is that the state has made its full payment to the pension fund for the last five years (including during the impasse). That has dramatically slowed the increase in annual payments ($200 M/year vs over $1000 M/year). The annual accumulation of liability from new hires has been dropping over that same period in large part to reforms for new hires that became effective 1/1/11. On the current trajectory the total pension payments will begin to drop after 2020.