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| The Statehouse scene is never this idyllic |
As
in the fact we’re now beginning month six of Illinois government’s current
fiscal year without a balanced budget in place. It has been 155 days (and
counting) since state government has had its full authority to operate.
THIS
LEVEL OF nonsense and placement of partisan politics over public policy may be
more offensive than anything that happened to Laquan McDonald. After all, we
can blame racist cops for that one.
With
regards to the state situation, our public officials are deliberately ignoring
their sworn duties – one of the most significant of which is to keep the daily
operations of state government going.
The
partisanship has been as such that there hasn’t been a meeting between the four
legislative leaders and Gov. Bruce Rauner since back in May – which was still
the old fiscal year.
That
is, until Tuesday, when the five of those officials spent some time talking at
Rauner’s official office at the Statehouse in Springfield..
NOT
THAT ANYTHING was ever going to come of this meeting.
The
way it was staged was to create the impression that the state government
leaders were trying to find a solution, without having to go through the hassle
of finding a solution.
This
was a meeting whose sole purpose was to get people like me to “Shut Up!” and
quit whining about the lack of government activity towards approving a budget.
After
all, can’t I see they were at the office in Springfield at a time when most
people try to avoid having to be in the Illinois capital city? Can’t I
appreciate how diligently they were trying to put together the spending plan
mandated by the Illinois Constitution in order for the state to operate
normally?
NOW
I KNOW some people will argue that “normal” in Illinois isn’t necessarily
desirable. Such as those people whom the New York Times this week reported were
spending many millions of dollars to try to rig the system in their favor. But
the chaos that the state now faces (such as us thinking it incredibly fortunate
that the Illinois comptroller’s office says it WILL be able to meet its pension
payment obligation this month as required after missing last month’s payment)
is absurd.
The
idea that we had a session held partially in public with each legislative
leader being given 10 minutes to speak prior to the private part of the meeting
where serious negotiations would take place makes me think Tuesday’s session
was entirely about giving each public official a chance to try to spin us into
believing their particular perspective about the state’s situation.
Because
those public statements will be what makes it onto the television newscasts
across Illinois, and will have way too much influence over the way people
perceive the issue.
Nothing
of significance was ever going to happen – other than some more cheap rhetoric
being spewed.
THERE’S
ALSO THE fact that this session was the one that Rauner scheduled for last
month – only to have Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, say he
wouldn’t show up because he had a funeral to attend.
Now
I don’t doubt the sincerity of Madigan wanting to mourn – every Chicago
politico worth his salt knows the significance of maintaining the personal
touch all the way to the very end.
But
this gathering wouldn’t have taken so long to schedule if there had been a
chance that something real could have come out of it.
Instead,
we got cheap talk spewed in the name of partisan politics. And we have a
government that will continue to operate on auto-pilot while the state’s debt
continues to grow and it becomes harder and harder, day by day, to envision the
way to dig ourselves out of this mess.
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