EXTRA: Is state’s budget battle about to devolve into Chicago vs. rural Ill. brawl? Yes, if Rauner gets his way

It’s no secret that Gov. Bruce Rauner is prepared to play partisan politics hardball in his effort to force the General Assembly into giving approval to at least a few of the anti-organized labor measures he views as essential to benefit business interests in Illinois.

But for someone who claims he’s being revolutionary and shaking up the way things are being done in this state, his tactics seem so retro. So repetitive of the past.

HOW ELSE TO view the appearances the governor made Monday in Marion and Belleville? Both of which are Southern Illinois communities whose legislators are of the Democratic Party persuasion.

They are part of the majority that is so large that Democrats can literally ignore Rauner’s rhetoric. They can override anything the governor chooses to veto – which ultimately puts the power of government in the hands of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton, both Chicago Democrats.

So how does Rauner try to overcome a Legislature that is stacked against him? By trying to change this from Democrat vs. Republican to Chicago vs. the rest of the state.

Trying to make it so that those non-Chicago area communities that have Democratic Party representation will bolt from following their legislative leaders and choose to back him instead.

TURNING THIS INTO an urban vs. rural brawl could work amongst some people. After all, much of the reason that former Gov. Pat Quinn didn’t get re-election was the perception among some Illinoisans that they wanted a rural-oriented leadership within state government.

But if that attitude had truly been prevalent in 2014, then Rauner never would have won the Republican primary to begin with.

Which is why I believe that if Rauner is truly to be successful, he’s going to have to be more broad-based in his appeal than to be the governor of rural Illinois. And I don’t think tactics like the ones he used on Monday are going to accomplish that.

Rauner made a point of criticizing the local legislators in Marion and Bellville (a St. Louis-area suburb) to, “stand up for taxpayers instead of Speaker Madigan and President Cullerton.”

AMONG THOSE WHO came under criticism Monday were state Sens. Gary Forby of Benton, Bill Haine of Alton and James Claybourne of Belleville, along with state Reps. John Bradley of Marion, Brandon Phelps of Harrisburg, Jay Hoffman of Swansea, Jerry Costello of Smithson and Daniel Beiser of Alton. Not exactly like-minded, identical communities.

Yet all the rhetoric is generic. The Southern Illinois and St. Louis-area legislators are being treated as an anonymous lump by the Rauner backers.

Which sounds so much like the accusations that Raunerites are making about the same legislators – that they’re acting like generic Chicago-type pols. I have always found that line of logic to be so laughable.

Unless Rauner really believes that the only way for them to think independently is for them to behave in lock-step unison with the business-oriented thought process he’s trying to impose on all of Illinois.

SO RAUNER IS trying to split the Democratic caucuses in the Legislature based on geography – hoping to isolate Chicago and its inner suburbs which account for about 45 percent of the state’s population and which has made it clear on many occasions that it has no support for the trash that Rauner talks.

Which may be the strength that legislators in opposition to Rauner may have to being able to remain firm to their principles and not be forced to give in to the guv.

There are a lot of people who have their own ideas about what constitutes reform, and they all have a right to be taken into account.

The sooner the governor realizes that fact and the notion that is way is not the only way to achieve reform (and a balanced budget), the sooner the nonsense talk will come to an end at the Statehouse in Springfield.

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Seeing reality? State budget is going to be a mess, no matter what happens

Is Illinois House Minority Leader James Durkin, R-Western Springs, experiencing a moment of clarity? Seeing what is bound to happen?

Or just accepting that he’s not going to be able to stop the budgetary process in any way that his Republican colleagues will be able to play partisan politics with?

MUCH WAS MADE of the fact that the Illinois House of Representatives this week approved several measures that are part of the state’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year (beginning July 1).

They’re passing them at levels that indicate there is going to be more money on hand – as in the state income tax that was raised temporarily for a few years will continue to remain at the higher level.

Rather than revert back to the lower levels of the past.

The theory is that by creating a budget that counts on the additional funds and by starting off the state government on a path of operations that uses the additional funding, it would then be pretty reckless for those ideologues who are absolutely determined to let the income tax increase wither away.

THEY WOULD SUDDENLY have to find billions of dollars of needed services to cut. Yes, it would be necessary stuff. There’s no fat to trim (not that much!).

Not only would bone be cut, entire limbs would likely have to be amputated.

There likely will be (particularly among non-Chicago-area Democratic legislators who are saying these days they want to vote “no” to keeping the income tax increase) much gnashing of teeth and ill-will created by some of the “aye” votes that will be cast.

DURKIN: Helping his GOP colleagues?

But as I always suspected (and accepted as an ugly fact) that the income tax hike was going to have to be maintained, so be it.

EVEN DURKIN SEEMS to realize that. Based off the newsletter he likes to send out, he says, “The 73 bills passed by Democrats (as part of the state budget process) all but guarantee the permanency of the income tax.”

Now I’m sure that Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner is watching all this with a certain level of drool dripping from his lips. There are so many ways things can get bungled to his political advantage.

I’m already trying to figure out the next lame “Quinnochio” reference he will make that refers to this process – implying that Gov. Pat Quinn has been less-than-honest with the electorate about his intentions.

Although I’m inclined to think that Quinn has been so unwilling to speak, as though he’s trying to avoid saying something that would later turn out to be a lie.

LIE OR NOT, the situation isn’t going to be a pretty one. Which is why I'm amongst those who found humor in the rant of state Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Belleville, who suggested that the reason Republicans are complaining -- without offering concrete alternatives -- is because their dog "ate" their plan to balance the budget.

The problem is that Illinois government, in addition to having to figure out a way to resolve its pension program funding shortfalls, has many serious obligations.

The educators alone are more than willing to take down anyone who dare suggests that levels of state funding will have to be hurt. These are educators who believe they’re already only getting 89 percent of what they’re supposed to get.



HOFFMAN: Comic relief for budget?

Anything lower, and we will have educators gathered up in anger to take down people who would suggest that they’re somehow the problem!

THAT’S WHAT THIS whole situation about funding winds up coming down to. Certain people are going to feel like they’re having the blame for everything that is wrong dumped all over themselves.

Whereas maybe if we’d accept the need to address issues seriously (instead of looking for ways to ideologize them), we’d be able to come up with a solution.

Which is why I wonder if all those people who are eager to believe Quinn is finished politically because a lot of people don’t much like him are missing the point.

They may not care about Quinn, but playing hardball with trying to eliminate funds that are needed to allow government to meet its obligations could wind up making the voters decide they absolutely detest those people by comparison!

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