EXTRA: Going nowhere fast!?!

“Rather than introduce a complete and balanced budget as required by the Illinois Constitution, Gov. Bruce Rauner today punted. Instead, he presented for the 1,547^th time his discredited Turnaround Agenda and he renewed his budget hostage pledge for a second year.”

State Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, in response to the proposed state government budget put forth by Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday

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I’ll be the first to admit that Rauner’s budget address seemed more like an attempt to make Democrats feel guilty about the inaction of the past year, rather than any effort to put together a serious spending plan for state government’s 2017 fiscal year.

But Lang’s response, which popped into my e-mail box at 12:46 p.m. just as the speech was ending, comes off as so canned. I doubt there’s anything that the governor could have said that would have resulted in a different response.

THIS IS THE overall stance of the Democrats, since the legislator from the North Shore is the one used whenever Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, wants to criticize something publicly without having the harsh words come from his own lips.

Kind of like that old 1970s program “Soap,” where Chuck would always tell his ventriloquist dummy Bob how badly he was behaving for all the mean-spirited things Bob would tell everyone else to their faces. Should we start calling Lang "Bob?"

In short, the only light at the end of this political tunnel is the freight train of excess debt that’s going to run us over and pulverize all of us – regardless of our political partisanship.

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EXTRA: Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner?

So how much change will Illinois government experience now that there is a governor of the opposition political party to the General Assembly?


Is the Statehouse Scene about to become the Bizarro-world version of the federal Congress, where a GOP Congress fights the chief executive.


WILL THE DEMS in the Legislature unite in opposition to a Gov. Bruce Rauner so as to keep him in his place and prevent his anti-organized labor attitude from running roughshod over the rights of workers?


Or is that a bit of overkill.


Personally, I noted the fact that Rauner's victory speech (about an hour after the Associated Press projected the era of the Mighty Quinn to be at an end) singled out the fact that he placed telephone calls to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton -- both D-Chicago.


He said he doesn't want to "fight" and "bicker" with the Legislature, but wants, "to find solutions ... to solve the problems facing Illinois."


OF COURSE, RAUNER also said he will, "work with anyone and everyone who shares the goals." As though he expects the Legislature to follow his lead.


That will be the big key to determining what state government will become like for the next four years.


Because to be honest, Quinn wasn't all that well liked by his fellow Democrats in state government. Madigan often regarded the governor as being weak and capable of being pushed around, and that attitude trickled down to the rank-and-file of the General Assembly.


So maybe Madigan can work with Rauner, particularly since this election result now makes him the undisputed most powerful Democrat in state government -- rather than having to defer authority to a governor of his same political party.


IT WAS AMUSING to hear state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, talk about the issue with WMAQ-TV. Of the Legislature, Lang said, "we'll work with anybody."


But he also said that it is Rauner who's going to have to moderate the anti-union talk that had organized labor all so riled up during both the primary and general election cycles this year.


""If he doesn't do that, we'll have four years of gridlock" just like the activity on Capitol Hill, Lang said.


So what led to an apparent Rauner victory?


IT SEEMS THAT Rauner got the roughly 20 percent of the Chicago vote he was hoping for (21 percent and kept Quinn to 52 percent of the suburban Cook County vote.


Which makes one wonder how well he actually did amongst African-American voters. James Oberweis, in conceding his defeat for U.S. Senate, said he thinks he and Rauner achieved something significant in actively campaigning in South and West side black neighborhoods in Chicago.


"We showed that campaigning in African-American communities is possible" for Republican candidates, Oberweis said.


There also was an ethnic "first." Ecuadorean/Cuban-American Evelyn Sanguinetti becomes the first Latina elected to a statewide government post with her win over Democrat Paul Vallas to be lieutenant governor.


NOT THAT HER presence added that much to the campaign cycle. So little that while she tried making her own victory speech Tuesday night, every Chicago television station broke away from her ramble so they could broadcast Quinn.


Who, as it turns out, is not about to concede until every single vote is counted -- a process that could take the bulk of the week to complete.


Quinn tried to show some spunk (which reminds me of actor Ed Asner as Lou Grant telling Mary Richards "You've got spunk. I hate spunk!") when he told his followers, "our government of the many takes on the government of the money."


Although Rauner tried to put his own spin on Tuesday night's victory by saying, "This is the victory for every family in Illinois."


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Has ‘gaming’ finally topped ‘gambling’ toward a casino for Chicago?

There are still some steps to follow, which means that things could still go awry – always a safe assumption when dealing with the Springfield set.

But the people who for the past two decades have been eager to have a gambling casino within the city limits (preferably somewhere near the downtown area) were celebrating on Monday for reasons more than it being Memorial Day.

FOR ONE OF the issues that the Illinois House of Representatives chose to address on this holiday was a bill that would allow for a significant expansion of gambling within Illinois.

No longer would casinos be restricted to 10 locations located on rivers outside of Cook County. Illinois is officially giving up on the concept that casinos are quaint cruises on riverboats in the less-urban parts of the state , with a touch of gambling taking place on board.

The bill approved Monday by the Illinois House would allow for a city-based casino – which is the absolute last thing the original proponents of casinos in Illinois would ever have wanted.

That is the reason why the idea of a Chicago casino has been a perennial issue for 20-plus years. It comes up every year, creates a lot of rhetoric, and invariably the General Assembly goes home without taking final action.

THIS YEAR, THE Illinois House did its part. What remains to be seen is if the Illinois Senate will follow through with a similar vote on Tuesday – the final scheduled date for legislative activity in this year’s session.

And if they do, will Gov. Pat Quinn go along with the measure and sign it into law?

Would Quinn be cantankerous enough to be a lone-wolf rejector of an idea that city officials have said they want? Officials as high-ranking as new Mayor Rahm Emanuel have said they want a city-based casino – figuring that it would generate so much income that it could make the big dent in fixing municipal finances.

Then again, selling off the city’s parking meters was supposed to resolve municipal finances – except that city officials managed to blow that wad of cash all too quickly.

IF IT READS like I’m skeptical about the benefits of a Chicago casino, you’d be correct.

A part of me always has thought that casinos are “economic development” for communities that, for whatever reason, are incapable of attracting any other kind of business. Proponents of legal gambling will claim I’m being elitist, but I’d really like to think Chicago can do better than have to balance its budgets by relying on the idea of shaking down people who have borderline addictions to gambling.

But people like Lou Lang, the state representative from Skokie who has been a long-time fan of having more casinos, are swayed by the dollar figures being tossed about -$1.5 billion in licensing fees and maybe about $500 million per year as the state share of the casino gross.

That’s not all from a Chicago casino. For the Illinois House bill buys off the interests of people in the rest of the state who might not want Chicago to have a casino by creating a few more casinos.

ONE EACH IN both the south and north suburbs (the former of which my step-mother likely would enjoy because it would be closer to her home than the gambling boats she currently goes to in Joliet), along with casinos in Rockford and Danville – both of which likely would try to market themselves as appealing to Wisconsin and Indiana residents respectively because of their proximity to their respective state lines.

All of those people who complain that casinos in places like East Chicago and Hammond in Indiana and Davenport in Iowa are taking dollars away from Illinois will now try to arouse the ire of other states by taking dollars away from other Midwestern states.

Actually, this factor could be what kills off this particular bill. For while Quinn has said he is sympathetic to letting Chicago city officials have a casino, he doesn’t like the idea of adding so many more casinos – even though without those additional casinos the non-Chicago state legislators would “gang up” on the idea of a city casino and vote it down.

He has told reporter-types he won’t let Illinois become a, “Las Vegas of the Midwest.” Which is a stretch, although I’m sure the biggest proponents of expanded legal gambling would have no problem with that image coming true.

LANG: Will he finally get his dream?

THERE ARE EVEN measures to allow slot machines to be set up at the airport and at racetracks (including the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield) because it seems that gambling on horseracing by itself can’t survive economically. It’s all in the name of political compromise.

So what’s going to become of this issue? At least we’ll know by the end of tonight (or the early hours of Wednesday if the Legislature can’t wrap up their business by midnight). Will the people who prefer the word “gaming” (because they think “gambling” sounds too ominous) finally get their way on this issue?

Or will the Legislature this fall be talking about casino expansion, along with pension reform and all the other issues they manage to push off for future consideration?

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Will activist pleas fall on deaf ears?

It’s going to be a common sight for the next few days at the Statehouse in Springpatch – various groups are going to send people to the Capitol in hopes of rallying in the rotunda (to the left) and urging the General Assembly to get off its collective rump and approve a long-term (as in the full fiscal year) solution to the state budget.

For you may remember when the Illinois Legislature finally approved a spending plan that averted the possibility of a state government shutdown due to the lack of a budget in place, they only approved a plan that takes us through the end of Calendar Year 2009.

THE CURRENT FISCAL year runs through June 30, which means come January we’ll be right back in the same place we were in back in July – only worse because a significant portion of the state’s revenue for the fiscal year will have been spent.

The reason nothing happened?

It all comes down to political people who are so fearful of Election Day and being labeled as some sort of tax hog by certain elements of our society.

For it was Gov. Pat Quinn who wanted the political people to just break down and accept the fact that some sort of income tax increase was essential to ensuring that state government would have sufficient revenue to perform all its functions for the fiscal year.

BUT LEGISLATORS KNEW there would be some people willing to play politics with any such vote and try to turn it into an issue to use against them.

So they preferred to do nothing.

It is with the idea of persuading the Legislature to now do something that a group calling itself the Responsible Budget Coalition plans to have hundreds of people show up at the Statehouse on Thursday – all in hopes of persuading legislators to do what they didn’t want to do back in July.

Come up with some more revenue, which sadly enough is essential because the cost of things does go up. That is regardless of whether one wants to pay it. With costs going up, the income also has to increase.

AND AS FOR those people who will argue that government should somehow operate more like a business, I’d argue that viewpoint is ridiculous. A government performs functions that must take place, whereas in the overall scheme of things, a business can cease to exist.

In short, the Legislature is paying too much attention to people with an ideological axe who would like to take it to those government programs they have disagreements with.

In fact, I can already hear those people get their responses ready that the groups preparing to show up at the Statehouse are merely ideological tools themselves – ones whose opinions should be disregarded.

If there were legislators who were afraid of ticking people off on a future Election Day back in July, just imagine how angry they will be now.

IF THE LEGISLATURE had acted back in July to resolve this problem, there’s a good chance that the masses would have forgotten many of the specifics and wouldn’t have continued to give it much thought.

But now, the Legislature is only three-plus months away from that Feb. 2 primary. There’s a better chance that doing the right thing now will be remembered more vividly.

And if the Legislature doesn’t act in their fall veto session, they would be forced to confront this issue in January – which means literally in the weeks before the primary election.

That is when people are paying attention and would remember every little detail.

IT IS BECAUSE of this time factor that I think these groups will be speaking on deaf ears in the Legislature. The individual lawmakers will want to get in and out of Springfield this fall while doing as little as they possibly have to.

Thinking that they have a serious chance to urge the Legislature to act may be somewhat naïve.

In fact, the most honest thing I have heard in recent days came from the mouth of a community center organizer in Chicago who will be part of a group representing the Chicago Area Project – a group that distributes state funding to neighborhood groups.

That organization experienced significant cuts in its own funding that are now trickling down to less money for community groups, and they have hopes of getting into the office of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, when they visit Springfield next week.

WHAT IS HONEST about that? She concedes that her group likely will have little luck getting that meeting with the Speaker.

“You don’t just walk into Mike Madigan’s office and demand his time,” she told me, adding she expects she and her colleagues will have to settle for one of Madigan’s top-ranking colleagues, state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie.

If that’s the case, I can envision Lang having a very busy veto session – having to tell everybody “no” while his boss hides away in his Statehouse office.

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CAPITOL QUIPS: It’s time for Gov. Rod to “play nice” with Madigan & Legislature

Our “Quote of the Day” honors go to state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, who during a Monday night appearance on the WTTW-TV program “Chicago Tonight” tried to explain why his leader, House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is so adamantly opposed to the activities of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Lang, who during his more than two decades in the Illinois House has risen to a significant position of authority under Madigan, says the speaker wants a governor who acknowledges the responsibilities that come with the title, and who is willing to work with the Legislature – instead of constantly combating it – on various issues.

Or, as Lang so “eloquently” put it, Madigan wants, “to have (Blagojevich) play nice in the sandbox with other government leaders.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Rep. Lou Lang is one of the Illinois House’s longest-serving (http://www.ilga.gov/house/Rep.asp?MemberID=932) current members.