1. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:40 am:

   How’s the weather in Springfield in July? Comfortable? :)




2. - hmmm - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:41 am:

   This is Quinn’s only option to avoid wearing the jacket for the make-believe budget.

   Let them override, pass a new budget, whatever. But if he vetoes, full and outright, its their budget. Just as it should be.




3. - Anonymous45 - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:43 am:

   Yes! Now the mess will be back on the laps of those who should rightfully own it IMHO…the legislature…better pack lots of freshly laundered shirts boys and girls…




4. - Say WHAT? - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:44 am:

   Deja Vu




5. - Ted Kord - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:46 am:

   Anybody have a running count? By my recollection there were overtime sessions in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Have I forgotten to count any over the last decade or so?




6. - Legaleagle - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:47 am:

   By “balanced budget” does Quinn mean only one with an income tax hike? He’s not going to get that. I never thought I’d miss Blago, but I’m starting to!




7. - Give A Break - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 11:51 am:

   Do it Gov, veto the their “budget plan” and keep the mushrooms in the town until they do their jobs. They have done nothing but avoid hard choices all year. Make them do what they were elected to do. Either pass a fully funded budget or on record for the cuts which need to be made.




8. - Ghost - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:03 pm:

   TII




9. - Ghost - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:04 pm:

   Rich you need to switch your metaphor from blood diamond to 300. Quinn shouting TII and then drop kicking (insert name here) into the pit of the GA.




10. - Balance - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:07 pm:

    Give,

    The legislature is already on record for the cuts that need to be made. They are the cuts Quinn has been talking about for the last month.




11. - Bill - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:13 pm:

    Typical. What a joke.
    By the way, thanks Gov. Blagojevich for getting the minimum wage raised before you got railroaded out of town. Things sure have improved a lot since you left, haven’t they?




12. - Cassandra - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:18 pm:

    Was it smart for Quinn to make all the Doomsday threats regarding social services spending. Now that the legislature is planning on giving him $2.2 billion for that, where does he go. They called his bluff. Now he is talking about programs for returning vets. How expensive can that be? I’m sure the legislature would be happy to give him targeted funding for that program as well. So would Illinoisians.

    But it’s not going to be enough for our Pat. He wants many billions over the next couple of years…and not too much oversight on how he spends it either.




13. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:26 pm:

    –Cross complained about how the Democrats are continuing to shut the Republicans out of the process…–

    This is getting dreary. Insert yourself into the process. Call a press conference and present a budget outline — where the money’s coming from, where it will be spent.

    Nobody can stop you from doing that. Give us all something to work with.




14. - Bill - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:41 pm:

    That fact that Cross and Radogno are not “part of the process” says a lot more about them than it does about the Dems.

    Oh sorry Illinois we’d like to help but those mean, nasty democrats just won’t let us.

    I guess what he is saying is that if citizens want to be represented in Springfield they had better vote for Dems.




15. - E Pluribus - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:45 pm:

    Franks makes a lot of sense. Too bad everyone is so starving for some tax money to spend that they want to base funding on video poker. This is the laziest funding solution and will have big negative impacts (this isn’t a moral thing). Video poker has failed in other states and it will come up short here too.




16. - Easy - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:45 pm:

    Republicans tried to pass bills during regular session to promote budget reform–dems killed them. No one can say GOP didn’t try to insert themselves, but as Quinn is finding out–Madigan runs the show.




17. - Ghost - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:50 pm:

    Actually the repubs failed to timely file the bills, and then attempted to have the GA vote on new laws no one had been provided to create talking points. The GOP was more interested in the press release then any actual serious consideration of new legislation.

    Besides I am not sure taking one of the lowest per person medicaid payment systems in the country and adding in an extra level of management and its costs, together with the fact that this added layers of costs for management would cause us to lose billions and billions in federal federal matching funds is reform. Moving backwards, increasing costs, adding a layer of beuracracy and losing federal money are not what I would call reform.

    But the GOP sure loves its meaningless press releases. pparently the GOP support of Blago includes it loves of meaningless acts in place of true leadership.




18. - Doug Dobmeyer - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:51 pm:

    You know Rich: This bunch of “drama queens” are playing a game. I wish you would just say that. There are no reasons why the money has to be held up.

    When the state got rid of Blago the reasons for delay went w/him. Now the Dems are simply creating a path for the Repubs to reclaim the Governor’s Office and Legislature in a few years. The Dems have shown they do not care to govern. I say this as a Dem, but less of one than I used to be.

    In 1991 there was a real fight over the budget that involved poor people on General Assistance. Approximately 100K people lost their $154 a month to Gov. Edgar’s Republican conservative policies. Yes, I lost that fight and he won.

    The fights of today are such crap compared to that hard fought fight. I think it’s a shame you and other media give so much credibility to these “drama queens” in their stage play.

    Doug Dobmeyer




19. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:53 pm:

    ===I think it’s a shame you and other media give so much credibility to these “drama queens” in their stage play.===

    Doug, perhaps you should explain how I’m supposed to cover Statehouse events without covering the governor and the General Assembly. :)




20. - SISU - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:53 pm:

    There are agencies that are going to be closed and on furlough starting tomorrow. Many of us will be filing for unemployment. I wish they would quit blaming each other and lead the state as they were elected to do.




21. - Easy - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:56 pm:

    Ghost-

    That’s just not accurate. HGOP filed an econ reform agenda early in the session–MJM never advanced it.

    Please move off the HDEM talking points, ok.




22. - Doug Dobmeyer - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 12:58 pm:

    Rich:

    Of course I want you to cover the Statehouse, just put theses utterances in a better perspective! i’m not suggesting you don’t cover the doings, but foster a better understanding of how and why the manipulations occur.

    I know I’m trying to make it harder for you, but…

    Doug




23. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:00 pm:

    Doug, I’m not sure what you’re reading, but that’s what I’m trying to do. Maybe you don’t agree with my analysis, whatever that is because you didn’t explain it, but I am trying hard and to the best of my abilities to put it all into perspective. Maybe not every point in every story and every post, but geez, man, over the past month do you think I’ve missed the big picture? And, if so, how?




24. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:02 pm:

    Easy, you know better than most that just about all the HGOP bills were introduced for press release purposes. When they were “voted down” on parliamentary procedures, the HGOP campaign operation immediately blasted robo-calls into targeted House Districts.

    There is no way that those bills in May were anything but campaign politics.




25. - Ghost - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:03 pm:

    Easy it is true, the GOP filed a huge number of pointless last minute bills just to pepper legislative districts with phone push polls and do press releases.

    The GOP has gone from supporting blago to pushing empty pressers. They have become the party of press release over substance.




26. - Bill - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:12 pm:

    LOL, ghost is channeling Miller.




27. - Quinn T. Sential - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:13 pm:

    Has anybody seen the projected machine distribution count by county/township/municipality for the video poker machines, and the projected revenue per machine? How about providing old QTS a link if you do?

    I have a feeling that more locals than they might expect will proactively opt out; but I am not sure whether the bill allows the reallocation of machines by locale, or licensee, so tht the same total number of machines are out there generating revenue overall, and that the WPD will not be overly influenced one way or another.

    Any real #’s to share?




28. - Doug Dobmeyer - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:15 pm:

    And, I’m sure you are Rich - you are a good reporter who had to claw his way to the top in S’fld.

    My fear is long termers in the State House become cynical and inbred with the ways of the leaders.

    I’ve gotten a new look in a new career I’ve taken on as an Interim Executive Director of an agency providing services to the mentally ill and a recipient of state dollars.

    I’m following the State House both from afar now, but also very close in - an interesting time of my life!

    Doug




29. - the Patriot - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:20 pm:

    This is the most insanly idiotic thing I have ever seen. No one is even paying attention to the facts. What good does it do to provide a budget knowing you cannot pay the bills.

    We need to shut down the government. Giving a one month extention of a budget knowing we can’t pay the bills is only going to make it worse. Schools are going into a new physical year way behind on funding promised to them last year. We can’t keep digging the whole.




30. - Anonymous Coward - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:29 pm:

    RT @melissahahn Thud. Leaders left, not speaking. Gov stays in his office, and will not speak. This is BAD.




31. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:34 pm:

    Doug, I would still like you to be specific. Offering a general complaint that we’re not getting the real story without offering up what you think we’re missing ain’t gonna cut it, man.

    Specifics, please.




32. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:37 pm:

    TP, try to slow down.

    Physical=Fiscal

    Whole=Hole

    extention=extension

    Also, you used “idiotic” in two comments on two different posts. Widen your vocabulary, please.

    Just sayin…




33. - Rambler - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 1:39 pm:

    from WQAD-TV (Quad Cities):

    State union workers in Illinois are defending 50 million dollars worth of pay raises set to take effect July 1, the same day devastating cuts to social service agencies are threatened to take place.
    –
    Forty thousand employees who work for the Department of Human Services, the Department of Children and Family Services, and the state prisons, will receive a 3-and-a-half-percent raise starting July 1st. The estimated pricetag, according to the union, is 50 million dollars. The contract was negotiated a few months ago.
    –
    The union says it met with the Governor’s office last week and isn’t ready to concede anything.
    ———-
    (Keep in mind that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall prices have declined by more than 1% over the past year.)




34. - (618) Democrat - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 2:27 pm:

    Jack Franks for attorney general? I hope he runs so I can help his opponent win the Democratic primary. Anyone but Franks! I remember in Denever last summer how he was going around telling anyone who would listen about being a delegate for Hillary.




35. - Ghost - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 2:47 pm:

    Bill, if only I could channel his car….




36. - CircularFiringSquad - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 2:54 pm:

    Actually the union raises are worth about $125 million. I think it is worth reposting that the IL State Police developed a revised budget plan that avoided layoffs, but GUMBY said all spending plans must have lay offs
    Very sad




37. - Cassandra - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 3:13 pm:

    Is that $50 million just for the raises that kick in tomorrow or for the whole package through Jan. which I believe is a raise and two COLA’s, or two raises and a COLA. Either way, a nice chunk of change. Or is the total where the $125 million figure comes from.




38. - Rambler - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 4:51 pm:

    Of course pay raises mean pension raises as well.




39. - Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 6:18 pm:

    CFS, please tell the great unenlightened here how ISP could meet the reduced budget targets without reducing headcount. I agree that it’s indeed “very sad” to contemplate the layoff of State Troopers, investigators, forensic scientists, or the good people that support police work.

    If the State Police has to cut, and they can’t cut people, there ain’t a lot left. Would the Troopers just sit in their own driveways and run radar? Allow crimes to only be committed on Tuesday to reduce investigative and forensic expenses? Those sound like the GUMBY AA knows.

    It’s also sad, and disingenious, to create false hope, rile up constituencies, and just generally jerk people around with version this and version that of budget scenarios that never will come to pass.

    Oh, but wait-CFS, you and your crew are the masters of that pathetic little game.




40. - Anon - Tuesday, Jun 30, 09 @ 6:38 pm:

    Franks voted no on the Capitol bill anyway…

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