Productive? More like, “Drop dead!”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave Mayor Lori Lightfoot the time of day, as the two of them had a one-on-one meeting Saturday to discuss various issues – including whether or not state government would be capable of offering help to city government in meeting pension obligations.

LIGHTFOOT: Wants state aid on pensions

Oddly enough, both officials issued canned statements where they both said the meeting was “productive” without offering much of anything in the way of details.

WHICH I SUSPECT really means the governor told Lightfoot something the equivalent of “drop dead,” and waited until after she left the room before bursting out in hysterics.

With Lightfoot muttering under her breath at the lack of consideration she saw the governor offering up aid to the state’s largest city.

For what it’s worth, the city currently has pension funds that are about $28 billion underfunded. Which had various reports indicating that the mayor saw the solution as having the state combine the city’s pension funds into the funds that cover other municipal governments across Illinois.

In short, the state would have taken on the city’s problems – with the city then being allowed to use its sources of income to pay for other issues and problems it would rather resolve instead.

IT DOESN’T SEEM to be happening, although both officials feel the need for showing a sense of decorum. Largely because both of the government officials carry the “D” label following their names.

PRITZKER: How quickly did gov. say 'no'

If this were the “good ol’ days” of Democrat Rahm Emanuel and Republican Bruce Rauner, the two of them would be dreaming up choice insults to toss in each other’s direction. And you just know Rahm’s insults likely would have included a borderline vulgarity or two.

Because it really would be fantastical for anyone to think that Illinois state government, which has financial dilemmas of its own, would have any willingness to get itself into resolving a city government problem.

RAUNER: Would he have offered any aid?

If anything, I could envision that residents of the 96 counties outside of metropolitan Chicago (who at most account for about one-third of the state’s population) would be prepared to have a hissy-fit if Pritzker offered up any sort of aid on this issue.

IN FACT, I’VE heard so many tales throughout the years of the amount of aid the state has had to provide to bail Chicago interests out of assorted problems that I have no doubt any attempt to contemplate state aid to resolve a city pension problem would run into serious political opposition that I’m sure Pritzker would not want to have brought down upon himself.

Meaning it was a fantasy, at best, to believe the state would be able to offer up much help.

The pension problems the city now faces are most likely going to be ones that will dominate the Lightfoot Years, and may be what prevents her from being able to afford the kinds of things that Mayor Lori would prefer to be doing so as to build herself up a municipal legacy of significance.

One other point I should note; it seems that both Lightfoot and Pritzker managed to use an identical phrase – they “look forward to continuing to work together” on various issues.

EMANUEL: How vulgar would his vocabulary become?

AS IN BOTH of them still plan to ask the other for many, more favors in the future. They’re expecting that the “D” they have in common will result in each of them having their phone calls to each other returned.

They both have to continue to deal with each other for the next few years.

So Saturday’s meeting wasn’t of real significance. With the real story being what was said immediately after the two met.

And whether either one of these esteemed public officials said anything in private that would top Rahm Emanuel’s vocabulary at its most vulgar.

  -30-

We get a state budget; legislators get pay raises. Ideologues get a migraine

Bruce Rauner really is gone. We truly are in a new era of state government.

PRITZKER: Signed a budget a month early?

For Gov. J.B. Pritzker didn’t even wait a full week before giving approval to a budget for Illinois’ Fiscal Year 2020 – which begins July 1.

PRITZKER SIGNED OFF Wednesday on the spending plan that will allow Illinois government to operate fully. He didn’t hesitate. Although the fact that the budget plan approved by the General Assembly was compiled largely by political allies means he didn’t have reason to expect the legislators would slip something in that would embarrass him.

Which led to Illinois being able to have a budget in place when the fiscal year begins.

That shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s what has become sad about Illinois government that it is. We had that two-plus year period during the Rauner years when no budget was in place.

Which caused problems for the ability of state government to operate, and which is largely responsible for the billions of dollars of a backlog that Illinois faces because during the Rauner years, the governor’s office was more concerned with approving measures meant to undermine organized labor – rather than ensuring that government could provide the services that were expected of it.

THERE WAS ONE uncertainty about the budget approval.

For it seems that legal language was inserted into the budget bill that provides for legislators themselves to get pay raises – the first ones they’ve received since back during the Blagojevich era in 2008.

In theory, Pritzker could have used his amendatory veto powers to delete that language – thereby leaving the base of the budget intact while removing the pay hike.

SKILLICORN: More interested in ideology

But Pritzker doesn’t sense the need to mess with the General Assembly – so he’s permitting their pay hike to go into effect.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the Legislature pays a base salary of $67,836 per year, and that will increase by $1,600 this year. In short, just under $70,000, which I’m sure some people would argue means they’re grossly underpaid.

But it should be noted the only people who earn that lowly level are the freshmen legislators – and the ones who are so untrusted by leadership that they’re not entrusted to be in positions of authority such as committee chairmanships or ranking minority party members.

So they’re really not underpaid. But it could be argued that, not having had an increase of any sort for 11 years, it was time for the pay scale to be adjusted.

It didn’t stop those in the Republican minority from ranting and raging and DEMANDING that Pritzker use the amendatory veto to delete the pay hikes.

TAKE THE VIEWPOINT of state Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee, who said, “taxes are going up in Illinois to pay for the mismanagement of their money at the state level,” and added, “Legislators do not deserve a pay raise. Giving lawmakers a pay increase is a mistake that the governor can and should correct.”

He was amongst the legislators who either was delusional, or overly politically partisan, enough to say that Pritzker should use the amendatory veto. Even though Pritzker made it clear by Tuesday he fully intended to let the pay raises take effect when he signed off on a $40 billion state budget.

RAUNER: His era seems like centuries ago

With Pritzker saying it was “a highly negotiated budget” with both Democratic and Republican legislative support – implying it would be wrong for him to impose his will on the process.

Not that it should be surprising some people will want to complain. These are political people – after all. Perhaps being a partisan malcontent is just in their very nature. Although my guess is that their real objections is that their “side” didn’t do better back in the 2018 election cycle and their focus is more on 2020 than anything actually happening now.

  -30-

Last man standing? It’s Mr. Speaker!

The Illinois General Assembly completed its business for the 2019 spring session this weekend – one day after they were scheduled to do so on Friday. History will record that they managed to get a lot of things done – including some measures (a casino within Chicago) that in the past seemed next to impossible.

 

MADIGAN: Illinois making recovery?

So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, felt the need to issue a congratulatory (of sorts) statement.

BUT READING THROUGH it, I couldn’t help but sense the real purpose was to remind people that Bruce Rauner is political history, while he remains in office. Rauner being the guy who spent four years in office perpetually blaming Madigan for Illinois’ inability to get anything done.

And even implying, at times, that Madigan ought to be the Chicago politico facing criminal indictment – rather than Edward M. Burke!

For as Madigan put it, 2019 will go down as the year of a balanced budget that boosts education funding, helps senior citizens and women and helps pay off $1 billion in old bills.

“While there remains more work to be done to put Illinois fully back on track, in these steps we see what Illinois can be when our leaders stand up for our middle-class families while still seeking common ground,” Madigan said. “When we use our time to build compromises, when we have a governor who encourages Illinois to think big again and when we all commit ourselves to working together to build a stronger Illinois.”

I’M SURE THE ideologues of the rural portions of Illinois will have their own retaliatory rants. But the sense is that we are better off for not having a government that was so anxious to play political games with organized labor that it was willing to disrupt its daily operations.

 

RAUNER: He gone!

Heck, even Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of suburban Westchester called the budget deal “bipartisan” and praised the fact it did not include tax increases.

Which makes the Madigan proclamation of the session’s end seem all the more the equivalent of a political raspberry – aimed in the direction of Gov. Bruce himself.

  -30-

Third Airport talk resurrected, but are we any closer to it actually being built

In the three-plus decades that I’ve covered news events in and around Chicago, there’s one story that seems to have lingered on beyond belief – a “third airport” for the metropolitan area.

Will this site ever become an airport?

It was a concept that was going through the process being planned and someday built, with the idea being that the first flights would be departing the new airport just prior to the beginning of 21^st Century – and would be expanded to full capacity probably about a decade ago.

THE LAST TIME I was out in the cornfields of Will County just south of Peotone, there was nothing resembling any of this having occurred. In fact, we’re really no closer now than we were back in the early 1990s to having another airport to relieve the congestion that exists at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

Which is why I find it humorous to learn that Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., signed off on a letter, along with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and several Congressmen, state legislators and mayors/village presidents from across the southern part of the Chicago area.

All of those political people are asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker to put $150 million in the next state budget to pay for improvements that would need to be made to the rural Will County site that has oft been considered for an airport.

Kelly tries to resurrect project … 

As in road repairs and utility connections leading to the site, along with an interchange on Interstate 57 that would make it possible for people to access the site – rather than whiz on by as they drive south to Kankakee or (a little further) Champaign-Urbana.

ALL OF WHICH is stuff that should have been decades ago if our officials were the least bit serious about developing a new airport for the Chicago area.

Instead, this is a project that has been perennially bogged down in partisan politics – with some people thinking that building any sort of project that would encourage economic development at the far south end of the Chicago area being a complete waste of time.

There’s nothing there, they argue. Why try to develop anything there?

… that Rauner tried to kill off for good

Of course, part of the problem is that supporters look at an airport project solely in terms of what can they gain from it. Not from any aviation perspective or whether it makes any sense to do an airport there.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE they’re following the logic of “Field of Dreams.” Remember? “It you build it, he will come.”

Although instead of the ghost of one-time White Sox superstar Joe Jackson, it would be jobs. And possibly the development of nearby towns such as Peotone, Beecher or Monee (with a combined population of 13,000) into municipalities of significance -- rather than rural burgs on the fringe of Chicago.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

Some think this site will be as under-utilized … 

For we went through four years of Bruce Rauner as governor, who always made it clear he didn’t want to be bothered with this project. Meaning that all the work former Gov. Pat Quinn tried to accomplish on the project was laid to waste.

NOT ALL THAT different from the ways that President Donald Trump has tried to undo anything and everything that had predecessor Barack Obama’s name attached to it. Would throwing money at the airport project enable it to return to life? Or has it lingered too long to survive?

The issue I wonder about is whether the need for a third airport for the Chicago area still exists the way it did back in the 1980s. As Kelly points out in her letter, United and American airlines coped with the crowded conditions of Chicago airports by moving their domestic hubs from O’Hare to airports in Denver and Dallas.

While O’Hare has dropped from the 12st busiest cargo airport to number 21. Maybe we could have kept these previous rankings if we had acted a few decades ago – instead of letting our partisan politicking take over.

… as the airport near Mascoutah

It may be too late, and we could be in danger of developing something along the lines of the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Ill. – which for many years sat unused and got tabbed as the “Gateway to Nowhere.” I’m sure some are eager to tag similar label to any Peotone-related project.

  -30-

Election Day is passed, yet mudslinging lingers on like an unflushed toilet

It was the issue of the November 2018 election cycle for governor – J.B. Pritzker had had toilets removed from a mansion he owned so that, technically, it was no longer a home anyone could legitimately reside in.

PRITZKER: Tax question won't wither away

That move enabled Pritzker to appeal his property taxes and get refunds of some of the money he paid for 2012, 2013 and 2014 – and also to make himself eligible for property tax breaks on what he had to pay in 2015 and 2016.

BUT AN INSPECTOR General’s report for Cook County contends those reductions were based on fraudulent affidavits filed on Pritzker’s behalf.

All of which came up during the election cycle, but to no avail. There weren’t enough voters inclined to take this charge seriously who were willing to vote for now-former Gov. Bruce Rauner. Pritzker won!

But it also seems that back around October of last year, the Republican members of Illinois’ congressional caucus (seven then, five now) wrote a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for northern Illinois insisting that the whole thing was a “scheme to defraud” Cook County taxpayers.

They claimed in their letter that charges of fraud and perjury would be warranted. Which may well be their opinion.

BUT NOW, IT seems that attitude just won’t wither away. For WBEZ-FM reported Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney’s office is confirming that they’re doing an investigation of the matter.

Rauner unable to make issue stick, … 

Which is news because federal investigators hadn’t said anything until now about this issue, and they are admitting that their investigation is still active. Although it also seems this is an investigation that isn’t about to result in criminal charges any time soon.

Although I don’t doubt that the conservative ideologues who were eager to spew this story last year are more than satisfied. Because this legal action means they can keep the allegations alive!

Heck, Illinois Republican Chairman Timothy Schneider issued the statement claiming that Pritzker has set a record, of sorts. He’s only been governor for 101 days, and he’s already got a bullseye on his back – courtesy of the U.S. attorney’s office.

… can federal officials find something new?

OF COURSE, THEY also made sure to distribute photographs they have of Pritzker with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich – trying to create the impression amongst the most politically-gullible that the current governor is just like the guy currently in the middle of serving a 14-year prison sentence out in Colorado.

Although these are allegations that I can’t help but think reek of partisanship.

For even in that letter from last autumn (which the Capitol Fax newsletter published again on Wednesday), the members of Congress admit they were reacting to newspaper accounts from last year.

The only people willing to say this is a “scheme to defraud” are the Republican partisans themselves. Almost as though they crafted the charge, and are now trying to claim that someone is upholding it – even though nothing as of yet has been proven,

MAYBE IF ONE is inclined to believe that not being a Republican amounts to an act of criminality in and of itself, then this has legitimacy. Otherwise, it’s going to take a lot more in the way of evidence to prove something illegal occurred here.

SCHNEIDER: 101 Days, he points out to us

Personally, I’m surprised to see these Republican-types trying to claim that Pritzker is doing something wrong for trying to take advantage of financial maneuvers to give themselves tax breaks. Isn’t that usually the Republican ideal – trying to reduce one’s tax debt by as much as they can?

Maybe the reason that President Donald Trump is fighting the idea of his own tax returns being disclosed is that we’d learn of so many measures on his behalf that anything Pritzker may or may not have done will turn out to be chump change, by comparison.

But the bottom line seems to be that the issue of Election ’18 about toilets is going to continue to linger on. Almost as though somebody deposited a load in the toilet bowl – and is refusing to flush. How rude!

  -30-

EXTRA: Trump could have learned lessons from Rauner example in Illinois

I’m not getting all worked up with excitement at the notion that the “shutdown” of federal government came to an end Friday at 35 days – largely because I’ve seen just how stupid political stubbornness can be in my home state of Illinois.

TRUMP: Losing? Or plotting new strategy?

For the deal President Donald Trump is agreeing to is that he’ll sign off on a measure that re-opens the federal government for three weeks, with a congressional committee supposedly studying the “border wall” issue to come up with a compromise plan that will allow for money to erect Trump – the Wall along the U.S./Mexico border.

HONESTLY, I COULD easily envision that three weeks from how, nothing will change, the “shutdown” will resume and everyone will claim that everybody else is to blame for what could become the months-on-end cessation of the federal government.

In fact, I wonder if this three-week reopening of the federal government is nothing more than a conniving plot by Trump to create circumstances that will allow him to claim he’s not to blame. Because it’s pretty obvious that just about everybody IS blaming The Donald for our government failing to live up to its obligations.

Sort of like a “do-over” to try to shift blame to “da Dems.” While letting Trump give his “State of the Union” address Tuesday in the Capitol as intended.

Maybe it’s because the memory of Bruce Rauner as Illinois governor is still so fresh in the minds that I recall how he would up taking blame for the just over two full years of inactivity by Illinois state government.

RAUNER: Trump could learn from Bruce's defeat

EVEN THOUGH GOING through the news “clips” produces stories early on in that shutdown with Rauner insisting he’d be the political victor of any such shutdown.

The circumstances are way too similar.

Rauner had as his crusade that was more important to him than the daily operations of state government his so-called “reforms,” which really were nothing more than measures meant to undermine the influence of organized labor within state government.

While Trump wants to build the barrier he claims will keep all the foreigners from being able to enter the country – even though anyone with sense realizes the foreigners enter the U.S. through airports or the U.S./Canada border – which is must more easily passable than the desert terrain that separates U.S. from Mexico.

PELOSI: The victor? Or just a delay?

RAUNER’S STATE SHUTDOWN resulted when the governor wouldn’t sign off on a state budget without the so-called reforms being included – even though it really was a completely separate issue from daily governance.

Just like Trump’s border barricades really ought to be done separately from the daily operations of the federal government.

But several months passed in Illinois when our officials approved a budget that would supposedly fund the state for six months – thereby giving time for us all to talk and reach compromise.

Which would have worked; if only we had officials inclined to want to negotiate in good faith. All that happened was six months later, the state shut down again – and that ultimately resulted in the combined shutdown of just over two full years for Illinois.

WHICH RESULTED IN the state developing much more severe financial issues and debt that it’s going to take our state years, if not decades, to cope with. I can really, truly see the same situation developing at the federal government level.

BUTTIGIEG: Could he be '20 beneficiary?

Are we truly headed for a situation that can only be resolved by the 2020 political demise of Donald Trump – with the voters taking it upon themselves to be so disgusted that they “dump Trump?” Or 2024, if it turns out the Democratic Party becomes too inept to put forth a credible presidential challenger (always a political reality).

It’s too bad that Trump couldn’t study our situation and try to learn from it for the betterment of the American people.

Then again, Trump is enough of an egomaniac to think he has nothing he could learn from anybody – which is the real reason that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has come out looking like a political genius in recent weeks. With The Donald looking like little more than a chump!

  -30-

Pritzker already upsets Ill. ideologues

J.B. Pritzker is still in the first couple of days of his term as Illinois governor, and he’s already managing to tick off the sensibilities of those people who have a conservative social bent on the way they want to view our society.

PRITZKER: Offends gun-rights advocates

Specifically, Pritzker signed into law Thursday a measure that sets state guidelines that firearms dealers would have to comply with in order to legitimately do business in Illinois.

THE CONSERVATIVE TYPES who believe its their “God-given” right to own as many firearms as they wish are all upset. They’re outraged! They probably, deep-down in their wildest fantasies, probably wish they could respond by going out and shooting up everybody who disagrees with them.

Illinois State Rifle Association officials went so far as to say that federal law already adequately regulates gun dealers. Nobody needs the individual states to get involved.

Although none other than mayoral hopeful Toni Preckwinkle said she thinks federal law has loopholes and that the new state regulations are meant to plug those exceptions. Thereby ensuring that people are following safety-motivated regulations when they go about selling pistols to people.

Of course, the part about this that amuses me is that Pritzker chose this to be amongst the first issues he dealt with as governor – albeit not the absolute first.

PRECKWINKLE: Says federal loopholes plugged

THAT APPEARS TO be the measure involving pay raises for state government employees that Pritzker approved, while claiming that such raises should have been provided in recent years but were denied by now-former Gov. Bruce Rauner.

A politically-partisan pot shot – further differentiating himself from his predecessor who didn’t exactly leave public life on the best of terms with those who work in government.

Now, he’s willing to take on the so-called “gun nuts” who, in fact, were claiming that Rauner would have used his veto powers to kill off this very measure.

Except that the General Assembly that approved this gun-related measure deliberately held off on sending the approved bill to the governor for consideration – UNTIL they had a more favorable governor.

RAUNER: Denied last chance to use 'veto' power

STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATION President Richard Pearson went so far as to call it “political gamesmanship” and to say he was “deeply disappointed” but “certainly not surprised.”

Admittedly, there was a certain gamesmanship involved. Had the Legislature rushed the bill over to the governor immediately upon his approval, he would have used his “veto” power, while likely issuing some high-minded rhetorical statement about the redundancy of the state’s actions to federal law.

But it’s also likely he would have waited until it would have been too late for the General Assembly to come back into session during its final days last week to vote to over-ride the gubernatorial veto.

In such cases, what happens when the session ends is that the bill dies with the governor’s veto standing with no chance of being overridden.

MEANING WE’D HAVE the newly-elected General Assembly having to repeat the process of approving a bill this spring so that Pritzker could sign it into law some time during the summer months. 

MADIGAN: Cunning kept bill alive?

We’d still have the State Rifle Association, along with all the other gun groups, issuing their pompous statements in opposition. Which means their real objection is that they don’t have someone with the political cunning of House Speaker Michael Madigan on their side.

So we now have new laws in Illinois giving local law enforcement more authority to inspect gun dealers and their records, and also to keep copies of a gun-buyers’ firearms permits or other identification. It won’t be just a matter for federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents to deal with.

And perhaps the ideologues who think President Trump is justified in thinking that conditions along the U.S./Mexico border are worthy of an “emergency order” ought to keep in mind that many people in our society would have an easier time regarding the proliferation of firearms amongst the public as the real “emergency.”

  -30-

Governor paying staff out of own pocket almost seems like a bribe

We have a new governor, and several high-ranking members of J.B. Pritzker’s staff will wind up being paid significantly more money than their predecessors did.

PRITZKER: New governor offers to pay double

One of the benefits of having a governor who has significant financial wealth.

IT SEEMS HE wants to pay some 20 of his staffers about double the amounts of money that the state payroll calls for.

It means that the staffers will receive their state salary – along with another check from East Jackson Street LLC. Which is a private company that is amongst Pritzker’s business interests and one that Pritzker supposedly controls completely.

All of which creates questions about ethical and moral issues – is it proper for an outside entity to be paying government employees anything? Even if it would seem it’s the newly-inaugurated governor himself who is coughing up the cash for the extra salary payments!

I can’t help but question it because one of the basic principles of government employment is that one is doing such work out of a sense of public service. And also to gain significant experience.

SERIOUSLY, WITH THE exception of Michael Madigan himself, nobody is meant to hang around the Illinois state payroll for a significant length of time.

Those people are gaining a certain level of experience and making contacts so that eventually, they will be able to gain significant compensation within the private sector.

This almost seems like Pritzker wants to buy a certain level of experience that the state payroll usually wouldn’t be capable of accommodating. Either that, or he’s expecting to buy a certain level of loyalty toward himself – rather than to the entity of Illinois State Government that is supposed to be the focus of such a job. 

Govt. attitudes changed since old days

There’s a reason that government employment is often semi-jokingly described as “the people’s business.” Government staffers are supposed to be doing their work  for the betterment of the public at-large.

UNLESS YOU’RE OF the mentality that thinks the Age of Trump our federal government now operates under is somehow proper. Then, you think the public at-large is a batch of chumps because they’d rely on government to fulfill certain responsibilities toward them.

So are we creating an ethical mess in which certain government employees – not all, I should say – will have the appearance of gaining financial bonuses?

Would it be little better than some private company with special interests on select issues suddenly offering up salary supplements to ensure that the actual government staffers act on their behalf – rather than that of the public.

Actually, if you describe the extra salary in such a manner, it almost sounds more like a bribe. Does Pritzker literally have to offer “pay offs” to get his people (who are supposed to be extra loyal to him) in order to get them to work?

NO MATTER HOW one chooses to think of it, such salary supplements sound kind of fishy. Also problematic because they wouldn’t be lasting. Are we literally going to have a fluctuating government payroll – based off who is in charge?

TRUMP: He'd love to buy cooperative govt.

Are voters going to have to contemplate who can afford to pay their workers the best when they decide whom to cast a ballot for? With the idea being that anybody who can’t afford to toss in some extra money for salary is too much of a chump to run for public office?

I’m sure that now-former Gov. Bruce Rauner wishes he had been able to buy a more supplicant staff to work during his four years as governor, Then again, what he really wanted was a more supplicant Legislature – which is something the voters never gave him.

So what should we think of the Pritzker years; will they turn into an era in which the governor has to use his wealth to buy his political influence? Or will it turn out to be a period in which the usual factors that split Democrats into different factions wind up making our state government as ornery as they always have been?

  -30-

What did Rauner do right?

Come the noon hour, Bruce Rauner won’t be our governor any longer.

RAUNER: At 12:01 p.m., he's a political nobody

Those heavy old doors of the Illinois Statehouse, with their ornate door handles bearing the state seal will give Rauner the “swat” on his behind as he walks out for the last time, and there will be many people cheering their “huzzahs!”

YET AS RAUNER departs and new Gov. J.B. Pritzker takes the oath of office to serve for the next four years, I have to admit there are some things the old governor deserves praise for.

There was the Executive Mansion renovation in Springfield. The structure dating back to the days when Abraham Lincoln was a resident of the capital city was in need of serious renovation and repair – made worse by the fact that more recent governors such as Blagojevich and Quinn couldn’t be bothered with the project.

It was Rauner who led the effort that raised some $15 million necessary to ensure the structure continues to have a long life. While also ensuring that he had to spend much of his own term as governor living in a house on the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

Just envision the aromas he had to endure – particularly during the state fair when all the livestock shows were at their peaks. That was bound to be the source of many a gag from people who thought they were hilarious.

QUINN: Didn't fix the mansion

ACTUALLY, I KIND of comprehend why the project wasn’t a priority in the days of Pat Quinn as governor. It was during that time that state government spent the millions necessary to do a renovation of the Capitol building.

A project that became very costly and caused many people to whine that Quinn was wasting government funds that could have been put to better use. I don’t doubt that a lot of people would have been lambasting him even more if he had also taken on a governor’s mansion renovation – no matter how necessary.

So it was left to Rauner to take on the project, and he got the work done prior to the official Illinois bicentennial celebration that took place last year. Although it amused me to learn that then-candidate Pritzker actually made a private donation to the fund to help advance the project along.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pardon backlog a mess

The bottom line is that Rauner gets credit for ensuring the official mansion and so-called showplace of Illinois government didn’t become too decrepit. That truly would have become an embarrassment.

RAUNER ALSO MANAGED to take care of something else the had become an embarrassment for Illinois. He issued a statement Friday pointing out there is no backlog of convicted individuals asking for some form of gubernatorial clemency.

There are no cases held over from past years for someone else to take care of.

Why is this an issue?

Actually, it’s because when Rod Blagojevich was removed from office by impeachment, one of the problems was we learned that the governor was ignoring the many requests for pardons or commutations that he had the authority to grant – if he so chose.

THERE LITERALLY WERE thousands of individuals whose pleas were made to Blagojevich that he never bothered to address. He was more than willing to play games with those individuals because he didn’t want to be bothered.

PRITZKER: What will he be noted for?

Now it’s one thing if you have a governor who seriously does not want to grant a lot of pardons or commutations. But the way Rod just chose to ignore the issue was a disgrace. Which is why many people find it ironic that Blagojevich is seeking clemency from President Donald Trump to get his own prison term (scheduled to end in 2024) reduced to time served.

It would serve him right if Trump just let him linger the way Blagojevich did to many others. But Blagojevich’s fate apparently benefits Trump politically – in that he can P-O many political people who want to see Rod suffer as much as is possible.

Rauner actually managed to work his way through the backlog dating to the Blagojevich years; creating a situation where future governors will just have to clean up their own mess. Although I'm sure the masses amongst us Illinoisans will be more than willing to be outraged at the many issues where our former governor caused problems to develop -- if not escalate to conditions that will take us years to recover from.

  -30-

People willing to play partisan politics, so long as they think it's just someone else's money at stake, not their own

A pair of intriguing tidbits I stumbled across Friday on the Internet – the federal government shutdown affects the IRS employees who would process tax returns. Those people who go out of their way to file their returns promptly in hopes of getting a near-immediate refund will have to wait to get their money back.

IRS to become factor in govt shutdown

I also stumbled across a Facebook-type friend of mine who offered up the opinion that the shutdown will last “until” people start noticing their refunds aren’t coming in.

IMPLYING THAT DESPITE all of President Donald Trump’s attempts to turn the lack of a federal budget in place into a fight for a barricade to be built along the U.S./Mexico border will ultimately end as a fight over income tax return checks.

Or perhaps I should say, the direct deposits made into their bank accounts of their refunds.

And dadgummit, the people will be more than willing to blame Trump for the whole affair – if they think he’s depriving them of their own money.

This whole government shutdown has become pathetic – even by the standards of partisan political battles. It is a complete non-issue that has been elevated to the level of significance during the past two weeks.

SOMETHING THAT SHOULD never have gained any traction has elevated an irrelevant (to the overall budget questions) issue such as immigration policy, and is being turned into something catastrophic.

What’s really sad is we have no real idea how long it could last. For Trump himself has made comments implying both that this is an issue that could extend for months, if not years; and that it won’t. If anything, his admission that it won't sound more realistic, because otherwise, we'd have to think The Donald is dumb enough to make the same mistakes of stubbornness that dragged the Illinois governorship of Bruce Rauner to its demise last election.

Will IRS, credit card co's push Trump to back down

But the, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Trump thinks he can declare the situation a “national emergency” and issue an executive order to have a border wall built regardless of what anybody else thinks, while turning the budgetary issue into a moot point. Which, truth be told, is the only style Trump has for governing.

If anything, his presidency to date has been evidence of why business executives with oversized egos are completely UNqualified to play politics or govern the public.

WE’RE GOING TO see politics more and more in coming days – what with the newly-elected House of Representatives that has Democratic Party leadership being more than willing this week to take as one of its first actions a vote that puts in place a federal budget that enables the government to operate.

Oh, and by the way, it ignores Trump’s wall “demands” completely, leading many to say Trump will use his “veto” powers and keep the shutdown going – with him them spewing more trash talk to place blame on Democrats.

Particularly on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whom I’m sure Trump will greatly resent if history winds up recording her as the woman who thumped Trump on this issue, or any other that will come up in the next couple of years.

There are those politicos who are saying that a failure to get something resembling a border barricade built will be the ultimate demise of his presidency. That is, if you believe Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.

WHICH IS NONSENSE talk, except that Trump himself spews so much nonsense that I don’t doubt he’s inane enough to believe it all!

Does it offend Trump ego to deal w/ Madame Speaker?

So I don’t really know how long all of the nonsense is going to last. It may well be that tax return issue that forces action to take place. Because we’re at that time of year where some people like to file their returns immediately after New Year’s Day so they can get a quickie refund – and a cash influx to help pay all those bills they incurred during the holiday season.

Forget the high-minded talk of Democratic ideals or cheap “America First” rhetoric or whatever partisan side’s talk you tend to listen to.

The real demanding presence could wind up being Visa or MasterCard sending people the bills demanding they “pay up!,” which they won’t be able to until that refund check, actual or digital, comes rolling in.

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