As GOP sees things, it's one down and one to go -- Dump Mike Madigan!

Now that Rahm Emanuel has taken himself out of the running for another term as Chicago mayor, it seems the political crackpots of the world will develop a new target.

MADIGAN: The top GOP bullseye?

As in Michael Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives AND chairman of the state Democratic Party.

ALL THOSE VOICES who were gearing up to go through an election cycle next year screaming and screeching about the need to get Emanuel out of political office will now shift their focus for the need to “Dump Mike Madigan!” The man who has literally been a state government official since the early 1970s and has been the leader of Democrats in Springfield since 1983.

Emanuel formally said Tuesday he wasn’t seeking re-election to a third mayoral term. That led Gov. Bruce Rauner and Republican allies (he doesn’t have many) on Wednesday to talk publicly about the need to put Madigan into retirement.

Not that such talk is totally original. Rauner and Republicans in general have campaigned for years on the theme that Mike Madigan is all that is evil about government and that the esteemed “Mr. Speaker” needs to go.

But Rauner and his allies made a point of touting their pledge that they want candidates to campaign on – the idea that no one should serve as a legislative leader for more than 10 years. Madigan has been one for nearly four decades, and in political circles is regarded as a record-holder for lengthy tenure in a state government.

EMANUEL: GOP didn't beat him at the polls

ACTUALLY, RAUNER ISN’T pushing to limit legislative leaders. He’s just looking to limit Madigan. In fact, the governor specifically wouldn’t say that the Republican legislative leader, Jim Durkin of Westchester, ought to face a limit on his service.

Which makes all of this a batch of hooey (I could use cruder terms that would be more accurate). Pure partisan politics at its worst.

Rauner can’t figure out a way to get the voters to dump Madigan on Election Day, so he’s trying to figure out ways of neutralizing Madigan while in office. Perhaps reducing his role so much that Madigan would become bored and decide its finally time for retirement.

RAUNER: Will he be the '18 political departure?

Which is a large part of the reason why I have always been suspicious of the concept of term limits – I think voters ought to be able to pick whom they want, and if they’re stupid enough to pick someone inept over and over, then perhaps they’re getting what they deserve!

THERE’S ALSO THE fact that Madigan’s true “offense” is that he’s not playing along with the politically partisan vision that Rauner wanted to impose on state government – which largely involves undermining the influence of organized labor so as to benefit the financial interests of big business.

When Rauner goes about making ridiculous comments about Madigan’s behavior being “criminal” (as he has done in the past), it makes me wonder if the people of Illinois picked a would-be tyrant for the office of governor.

As I already wrote, perhaps we deserve a bit of suffering for making such a pick, although 2018 is the chance we can try to impose a bit of logic back to our state government when we cast ballots for governor.

As for Madigan, he can be a strong-arm himself – one more than willing to play power politics to get things done. Only in Madigan’s case, there is also just enough of a soft touch that one doesn’t realize how hard he’s been knocked out of the box. There’s a reason he got that nickname “The Velvet Hammer” all those years ago.

BUT IF MADIGAN truly unsettles the public mindset, he can be beaten. All political people ultimately are beatable – even some of the biggest, most-established names of politics have experienced losses by voters.

DURKIN: Nobody looking to dump GOP leader

Particularly since in Madigan’s case, all it would take to truly defeat him is to gain the support of voters in one legislative district (as in the neighborhoods surrounding Midway Airport). Those are the people for whom Madigan is the local legislator – and I also don’t doubt they keep re-electing him because they like the idea that their guy is the overall boss who gives orders to everybody else.

Instead, we’re getting more and more evidence that Nov. 6 will be the Election Day that does result in a significant incumbent loss – as in the departure of Bruce Rauner following one term as governor.

Could it really be that Election ’18 will go in the history books as the one in which a majority of Illinoisans (particularly the two-thirds who live in metropolitan Chicago) will see a choice of Rauner and Madigan, AND decide to keep the latter?

  -30-

EXTRA: Political strategist Madigan vs. amateur-hour gov Rauner

Gov. Bruce Rauner concocted a scheme to try to get himself some more votes come Election Day by trying to appear to be the guy who wants to bring back the death penalty to Illinois.

Will Rauner's death penalty fantasy ...

Yet in the ultimate evidence that when it comes to politics, Rauner is a rank amateur, it would seem to be that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is going to wind up using the issue to take him down.

RAUNER’S METHOD OF bringing the issue up was by using his amendatory veto powers to attach the issue to a separate measure – one that would impose a series of restrictions in Illinois on firearms usage and purchase.

In short, legislators who desire to have those restrictions take effect would have to go along with his death penalty plan for people who kill law enforcement officers or large numbers of people in one fell swoop.

So what does Madigan, the man who’s been a part of the legislative process in Illinois for nearly a half-century, do?

He introduced an amendment Thursday to an Illinois Senate bill now pending in the House of Representatives, with the amendment being “the exact language the governor suggested” to bring back capital punishment.

THAT BILL WILL have a committee hearing come Monday. Legislators will have their say on the matter at that time. As Madigan put it, “we look forward to continuing our effort to keep our children, our schools and our communities safe from senseless gun violence.”

More likely, it will give the Democratic Party majority that controls the Illinois House a chance to beat up on Bruce Rauner, knock about his bill, denounce him for trying political tactics meant to impede firearms restrictions that many of them previously voted for, and pretty much go out of their way to make Monday a very unpleasant day for the governor.

Eventually, they’ll probably take some sort of vote on Rauner’s suggestion, and put the spin on it by saying it was evidence that “the people” didn’t like the governor’s ideal.

... be killed off by Madigan's political skill?

It kind of reminds me of a moment some two decades ago – back when then-Gov. Jim Edgar and Mayor Richard M. Daley came up with a proposal related to a new Chicago-area airport.

THE TWO OF them made a public announcement about what they wanted to happen, and implied the General Assembly would follow suit in coming months. Yet then-state Senate President James “Pate” Philip didn’t think much of the idea, and really was bothered by the fact he wasn’t consulted as part of negotiations.

Which resulted in Philip having the Edgar/Daley proposal written up as a bill for the Senate to consider. They wound up rejecting it outright (literally, nobody voted for it), and Philip forevermore would say of that issue, “we voted for it, nobody liked it.”

Now I know some are saying that this may be a tactic by which Madigan ensures Rauner takes full blame for trying to bring back a capital crimes statute – an issue for which the state went to lengthy extremes to abolish in past years.

Which would wind up costing him many votes in Illinois – even though Rauner is looking solely at the ideologically-inclined who might get worked up over this single issue.

BUT I SEE it more as a way of killing the Rauner plan off, while possibly trying to save the separate issues related to firearms ownership.

Reminiscent of Pate tactic

Regardless, it makes Monday’s debate more about partisan politicking rather than about any criminal justice issue.

If you want to be honest, if this gets reduced to an issue of political gamesmanship, it’s most likely that Madigan will prevail.

For Madigan just comprehends the political process and how it can be used to get things done far better than Rauner with his anti-union dreams that he tries to pass off under the label of “reform.”

  -30-

EXTRA: Everybody’s spewing a load of bull in the land of Springpatch

Springpatch; it's that mythical place where Illinois political people live in their own little world and the concerns of the real people whom they’re supposed to be representing don’t seem to amount to much.

All gloomy and dank at the Statehouse these days as it was in this century-old postcard image

Springpatch. That’s the place where we wish we could avoid, yet it now is taking over the focal point of our state government operations all because of the nothingness that is occurring there.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY convened again in their “special session” – which former legislator-turned-Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey says  on his Facebook account "aren't very special at all" – for a whole lot of nothing toward trying to craft the operating budget that would allow state government to function properly.

We haven’t had one of those for nearly two full years – and based on what we’ve seen so far this week, there’s no reason to think we’re going to have one by next Friday (which is the final day of state fiscal 2017).

About the only thing that did get done Friday was the obligatory round of statements issued by the political partisan hacks who want us to blame “the other guy” for the whole lot of nothingness that is occurring.

Madigan, Cullerton continue to stall was the headline atop the Illinois Republican-issued statement, while da Dems claimed to be “deeply disappointed” that Republican leaders wouldn’t meet with them Friday “and work (with us) to advance a balanced budget.”

THE BULL EMANATING from the Statehouse Scene made me think for a second that we were in mid-August – the time of year when state officials focus attention on the Illinois State Fair and we get to smell the fragrant aroma of the assorted farm animals on the state fairgrounds.

So do I think that Senate Minority Leader Christine Ragodno and James Durkin of the Illinois House really created a sense of disappointment by not showing up to meet with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan or state Senate President John Cullerton?

No more than I believe the Republican rhetoric that Democrats are engaging in “sham hearings” by refusing to blindly vote for whatever the GOP tells them to do.

This is a problem that will require a true sense of political bipartisanship to resolve. Unfortunately, all we’re getting is some of the most intense partisan trash talk that has ever come from Springpatch.

IT’S NO WONDER that we’re getting such garbage from a place that brings to mind the lame old gag of naming the Illinois capital city in memory of the fictitious hometown from the old Lil’ Abner cartoons.

Because there are times I think our government officials have all the sense of a Shmoo.

  -30-

GOP got to stir up Madigan resentment

We have Donald J. Trump as our president-elect these days because he managed a campaign strategy of getting people who really didn’t think too highly of him to despise the notion of his opponent winning the election that they voted for him anyway.
 

Will we come to despise Mike Madigan ...

It would seem that we in Illinois will be subjected to a repeat of that same strategy when it comes to our choice of governor for the 2018 election cycle. Who knows; we, the people of Illinois, could wind up producing an even uglier partisan political battle than what the nation endured in the now-complete 2016.

BECAUSE LET’S BE honest. Many of us don’t think very highly of Bruce Rauner’s first two years as governor. He hasn’t accomplished a thing he said he would, and has shown a willingness to take harmful actions toward government operations to achieve his partisan goals.

But the strategy that has been used in past election cycles is already being revved up for ’18 – we’re supposed to hate the notion of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, as an all-domineering political hack and boss who keeps only his own interests in mind that we don’t think about how much we’d like to dump Rauner too!

The Illinois Republican Party has been giving us so many tidbits in recent weeks, all geared to the fact that on Wednesday, the General Assembly that was elected in November will convene in Springfield, Ill., to begin its work.

On that date, their first actions will include the choosing of new leadership.

REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING to plant the false notion that there’s somehow a chance that Madigan could be dumped from the leadership post he has held for all but two years since 1983.

 

... in way some hated thought of 'President' Clinton

Madigan isn’t going anywhere. He’s going to be chosen once again to be House speaker. The dominating thought process of Madigan vs. Rauner will not change – we’re not likely to get anything of significance accomplished.

In a sense, Republican operatives are lying when they say Madigan will be replaced. Of course, they know that. They’re not stupid! Venal (at times), yes. Stupid, no.

What they want is to create a sense of disappointment, then disgust and contempt, for the people who do wind up picking Madigan to be the Illinois House leader for the next two years.

 

Rauner always distanced himself from Trump, ...

BELIEVING THAT IT will create a sense of outrage that will have people so eager to vote against every Democrat they can find on the ballot that it would finally put Republicans back in a place they haven’t had since 1995-96 – a place where they would control all and treat their opposition with contempt.

That was how Republicans behaved in that two-year period (I remember vividly the blatantly partisan trash that was pulled back then), and it is a large part of the reason why I don’t have much sympathy for Republican political people when they complain about how they’re being abused by the Democratic majorities that now run things.

I couldn’t help but be amused by the latest Republican attack – an e-mail message offering up a “Boss Madigan” quiz that is supposed to show how Madigan is enriching himself at the expense of the Illinois people.

It blames Madigan for the fact that property taxes are so high. Of course, property taxes are set by local government entities over which Madigan has no control.

ALTHOUGH I KNOW there are local government entities (particularly school districts) that say they’d be able to lower their local tax levies IF ONLY the state would boost the funding it provides them.

 

... but will he resort to Donald-like tactics

Which is something that state officials would not want to do. They don’t want to have to take responsibility of providing even more money than they already do.

There are those who are hinting they wish Madigan (who has been a state legislator since the early 1970s) would retire. Then again, there also are those who think the real solution would be to dump Rauner from office. Perhaps we should think of a total ouster – although I don’t expect that to happen.

Instead, we’re likely to see if Rauner can turn Madigan into something the equivalent of what Trump did to Hillary Clinton. Somehow, I think Madigan is not going to take this as lightly as she did, and we could wind up with a political battleground that leaves carcasses strewn all over the place!

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: For those of you strong enough to tolerate the partisan stench, here’s the quiz offered up by Republican partisans meant to imply that Mike Madigan is a partisan hack who’s responsible for your property tax bills being so high.

We’re back in the mess again! That short-term budget deal ends Saturday

Remember how our state’s public officials came up with a temporary solution to their inability for a year to pass anything resembling an operating budget for state government?

The mood of the Statehouse turns as black as this Turn of the Century postcard come Sunday

Temporary because it only provided a budget for the first half of the state’s fiscal year. Come the second half, we’d be right back in the same mess of a situation that we’ve been in since the arrival of Bruce Rauner as governor who seems more concerned with messing with organized labor rather than actually governing the state.

WELL, THE MESS has arrived. Because the half-year for which there was a spending plan in place ends as of Saturday.

Sunday is not only the beginning of a new calendar year, it is the end of the time period for which that short-term budget covered.

And because that short-term budget didn’t make anything resembling significant cuts (it pretty much kept everything at a status-quo level even though it was clear to everybody that somebody was going to have to take a hit financially), we’re even deeper into the mess now than we were back in May or June.

In fact, I’d argue we’re so far deep I wonder if it is possible for us to dig our way out.

BECAUSE THE LATEST circumstances is we have our officials refusing to even meet to consider negotiations toward a spending plan that would keep state government operating.

 

Can't we just say both Rauner ...

In fact, the only real movement on the issue is as the various factions try to orchestrate circumstances and spew rhetoric meant to imply it’s the other guy’s fault.

We’re into placing blame. Pointing fingers. Trying to spin things so as to avoid having to take blame for the mess that our state confronts these days.

There is no “winning” this situation. At least not in any way that doesn’t wind up imposing greater harm on the Illinois electorate – who in theory are the very people for whom the government officials are supposed to be working.

 

... and Madigan are stubborn?

THERE’S A REASON that government is semi-jokingly referred to by its practitioners as “doing the people’s business.” It’s supposed to be about us, not them.

Now I’m going to concede that for something to happen, everybody is going to have to give something up to a degree that everybody will feel like they lost. Years from now when they see how little things have changed, they’re going to look back and wonder why anyone thought the chaos we’re seeing today was ever worth it!

Although for those people who want to play partisan politics and claim it’s all Mike Madigan’s fault, keep in mind that he is representing the interests of a significant segment of Illinois society.

You really want to know how to get rid of Mike Madigan as Illinois House speaker? Just have him make the concessions that Rauner has been demanding of him and you’ll see how quickly people turn on him. There are those who are fully convinced he IS sticking up for their interests.

AS FOR RAUNER, I always thought his “turnaround” agenda was a lot of bunk – particularly because it went so counter to the mood of the state as a whole. There was no way he should ever have expected the General Assembly to go along with his desires.

Or at least the Legislature as it has been constructed in recent years.

So when Rauner spends time (and money) trying to work toward electing more sympathetic legislators come 2018, that I get. That I comprehend. I don’t agree with it, but it is a responsible reaction – maybe he’ll get lucky and be able to impose his changes in an altered partisan political situation

Until then, his stubbornly putting a hold on the ability of government to operate does nothing more than create chaos – and could wind up backfiring if it turns out that the only person people in Illinois despise more than the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives is none other than Rauner himself.

  -30-

Rauner comes off like would-be segregationists still fighting Civil War

That civil war is long over

Denial!

That’s the mind-set these days of Gov. Bruce Rauner, who went about giving his support on Monday to a measure meant to ensure that public colleges across the state will continue to operate at least for the rest of the current academic year.

THE STATE’S LACK of a budget has been particularly harsh on public education. They’re not getting the levels of state funding upon which they rely for operations. They’re actually having to rely upon the tuition paid by their students – which isn’t enough to keep classes open in full.

At Chicago State University, a school that traditionally is a little more messed up financially than other schools, there was actually fear that there wouldn’t be enough money to finish the current academic year.

The school might have to close down and students would find their academic work for the year all a waste.

Other schools might have to start cutting certain programs, leaving students out in the cold.

BUT THE GENERAL Assembly, that body whom Rauner thinks deserves all the blame for the state’s financial situation because they’re Democrats unwilling to see organized labor as “the enemy” like he does, last week gave its support to a measure that comes up with some $600 million to allow public higher education to keep going in full at least through September.

 

This 'civil war' ...

That’s the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year, which theoretically the state Legislature and the governor are working on already. Except they still haven’t figured out 2015-16 for real!

Now why would Rauner be so willing to make this move, which he said in a statement on Monday would, “represent a first step toward compromise between Democrats and Republicans” toward putting together the overall budget that would keep state government operating in its entirely.

Probably for the same reason that Rauner, as his one budgetary action last year, enabled elementary education programs to have a budget.

 

... should also end

FOR THE PUBLIC grammar schools and high schools are the one entity that have received their state funding during the state fiscal year that began back on July 1.

Try denying a child the chance to be in the classroom supposedly learning something, and you’d see how quickly that child’s parents would turn on Rauner and wind up voting en masse for anybody with the nerve to run against him.

Now that college students, whose financial aid was threatened by the lack of state Monetary Award Program grants, could wind up losing the chance to be able to attend classes and try to make something of their future lives (seriously, how many people can actually afford the modern-day cost of college without some financial aid?), we’d see how quickly they’d become motivated to register to vote and become a force that supports something other than the sweet-sounding-but-impractical rhetoric of presidential dreamer Bernie Sanders.

Rauner, in his Monday statement, talks of the need to build upon bi-partisan political rhetoric. As though he thinks he is making the initial gesture to a hostile pro-union political force more interested in looking out for organized labor interests than those of the people.

WHICH SOUNDS A bit as ridiculous to me as those people who like to pretend the U.S. Civil War was truly a conflict over state’s rights with civil rights issues being completely irrelevant to the struggle.

Would Abe be ashamed of Ill. today?

I’m not even getting into the fact that the issues upon which certain people tried to rely upon the concept of state’s rights to defend were despicable and immoral. It just seems like Rauner is determined to view our financial situation through as narrow a lens as the Confederacy-apologists try to view that century-and-a-half old war.

Although it’s likely purely coincidental that it means Rauner is fighting against “union” the same way those Southerners were. That war is over, and the fight for a state budget ought to be.

It’s time for the sides to come together and compile the budget agreement that keeps government going. After that, Rauner can resume his organized labor fight – perhaps gaining enough Legislature support after the next elections to have a chance of legitimately reducing labor union influence.

  -30-

Not a political revolution on Tuesday, no matter what some want to believe

I’m sure there will be those individuals who will contend a serious change in our government was achieved, what with the way voters in Cook County dumped State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

Still have my sticker

Anita is the one whom it seems will wind up taking the fall for the police shooting death of Laquan McDonald, as her opponent, Kim Foxx, managed to get a serious voter margin over her.

SO MUCH SO that people can’t argue the presence of a third candidate in the Democratic primary took votes for Anita – Foxx got a solid majority. With particularly strong voter turnout for her in the South Side and surrounding suburbs.

In short, the portions of metro Chicago that have majority African-American populations where people were outraged over the shooting death of McDonald that got captured on video.

The people who have been screaming for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign and are frustrated to realize he could care less what they think will have to settle for defeating Alvarez’ re-election bid (she was seeking her third term as head of the county prosecutorial office).

Let’s hope they remain pleased if, in a couple of years from now, the criminal trial of the police officer who shot and killed McDonald (he faces multiple counts of murder) does not go the way they want and the cop gets acquitted (which is always a real possibility).

BUT FOR THOSE people with the Beatles’ song “Revolution” running through their minds, I’d say “Pipe down!” Because dumping Alvarez – while significant – is about as big as things got on this Election Day.

FOXX: The new state's attorney

U.S. Senate hopeful Andrea Zopp, who was hoping that the same people who voted Foxx into the Democratic nomination for state’s attorney would also support her, didn’t do so well.

Her numbers were so weak that the various newsgathering organizations rushed to declare Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., the winner for the Senate right when the polls closed at 7 p.m.

And as for “the Bern,” Sen. Sanders of Vermont would seem to be nothing more than a mild case of suntan in Illinois and elsewhere. For it seems Democrats in this state preferred Hillary Clinton. Then again, so did Democrats in all the states where ballots were cast on Tuesday.

HILLARY, THE PREFERRED candidate of the Democratic Party establishment, continues her progress toward gaining the presidential nomination for the November general election.

CLINTON: She didn't get 'berned' in Illinois

While the one-time “Party of Lincoln” continues to shame the reputation of “Honest Abe” with its desire to nominate obnoxious New York real estate developer Donald Trump for a bid for the White House.

If anything, the intriguing part of Tuesday’s activity may well be the turnout.

It wasn’t that big in Chicago proper – Board of Election Commissioners officials say it was less than the 53 percent of registered voters who turned out in 2008 when hometown boy Barack Obama first ran for president.

BUT IT WAS high in the suburban areas – so much so that the Washington Post made a point of acknowledging the desire of our suburbanites to make sure to cast their ballots.

For what it’s worth, I have one Facebook friend who tells the story of how his parents did not cast their ballots because the lines were so long at their polling place in suburban Buffalo Grove and they couldn’t wait.

While I know my own parents in suburban Homewood saw the long lines of would-be voters waiting to use the touch-screen machines to cast ballots, and wound up deciding to fill out paper ballots instead, rather than wait in line.

All in all, it makes me grateful I used an early voting center to cast my votes a couple of weeks ago. Particularly since any attempt to consider Tuesday’s outcome revolutionary gets dumped all over by the outcome for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

Da winnah, and still champeen!

NOT ONLY DID he solidly crush the challenger who received campaign funding from people loyal to Gov. Bruce Rauner, his preferred candidate of Julianna Stratton managed to crush state Rep. Ken Dunkin, D-Chicago – the legislator whose refusal to support Madigan on several issues undermined the so-called “veto proof” majority that Democrats use as their club over Rauner’s head.

Political retribution was achieved. And how revolutionary can things be if the big winner for the night is the high-and-mighty “Mr. Speaker?”

  -30-

How does Illinois move forward this year when we’re still stuck in last year?

I must confess, I don’t have a clue what will come out of the mouth of Gov. Bruce Rauner when he gives his “State of the State” address come Wednesday.



RAUNER: What will he say?

I don’t doubt that when the noon hour arrives, Rauner will speak – and probably make attempts at eloquent rhetoric (or at least something he thinks is eloquent) about how we, the people of Illinois, will be much better off if only our political structure would just shut up and do what he tells them to!

BUT AS FOR any specific policies or changes or anything that he might try putting forward as the reason for government to exist at all in 2016? I doubt there will be much of any substance.

In fact, I have to admit to being glad I won’t be at the Statehouse in Springfield to actually hear the address, and certainly don’t think there will be a need to try to watch a broadcast of the speech on one of those public access television programs that nobody but government geeks pays any attention to anyway.

It will all be partisan trash-talk, as will be the official responses that the General Assembly’s leaders will feel compelled to make once the governor is through talking.

So the “State of the State” of Illinois for 2016? It’s the same as in 2015 – total chaos caused by the fact we have delved into the type of partisan politics that has long dominated our federal government scene.

ALTHOUGH FOR THOSE who try to make some sort of comparison by claiming that Rauner is going through the same level of partisan attacks that Barack Obama gets from the Republican-run Congress, I’d have to say “nonsense.”

The activity taking place here these days ...

To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Rauner, you are no Barack Obama.

If anything, our governor is trying to give the same partisan tactics used in Congress some level of credibility within Illinois state government. Although that actually isn’t 100 percent correct either.

The ideologues in Congress are about trying to give dominance to a certain segment of society based off select interpretations of moralistic issues. Rauner is about trying to give his business buddies a government that will coddle their concerns over all else in our society – so as to benefit their bottom line.

... bears too much resemblance to Capitol Hill activity

I SUPPOSE IT’S like the old Reaganomics theory of “trickle down,” that if the most wealthy are doing well, somehow we all will benefit from their wealth. Although it’s been my own observation that when the wealthy are doing well, they take on measures meant to ensure that they keep as much as possible – and that nothing trickles down.

Perhaps this is the kind of talk we’ll hear from the governor on Wednesday.

It’s going to be a speech that tries to justify the past year – one in which we’re now seven months through the current fiscal year without being anywhere close to having a balanced budget in place.

And where the only reason certain government agencies continue to run is because the federal courts have ordered they do so.

WHICH IS A mess because the state never took the actions necessary to ensure there’d be enough funds to get through Fiscal 2016. Either by some sort of revenue enhancement/tax increase or some sort of major cut to keep the state within the level of cash it actually will have on hand.

And yes, government has obligations that must be met. So I don’t want to hear the cheap rhetoric about “living within one’s means.”

MADIGAN: Is it his fault?

So we’re at the point now where we’re getting ready to hear in coming weeks about a budget proposal for Fiscal 2017 (which begins July 1), even though we still don’t have the budget in place for ’16 – and probably never will get one. It would be nice if Rauner could use the “State of the State” to try to explain himself and his past year’s actions. But I don’t expect we’ll get that.

Unless you take seriously a speech that basically boils down to the theme of “It’s Mike Madigan’s fault!”

  -30-

Oh, pipe down already!

I was appalled at the rhetoric being spewed Wednesday by Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger with regards to the potential for a shutdown of state government come July IF officials are unable to give approval to a balanced budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.

MUNGER: Rauner's mouthpiece?

Now I’m sure Munger will justify the horror stories she told of how much the people will suffer if there’s a government shutdown by saying she was simply telling the truth.

BUT WHAT I heard was an attempt by the interests backing Gov. Bruce Rauner in the nonsensical budget battle now taking place to get people to blame “dose damn Dems!” for any action that may occur next month – and in future months.

Because as Munger said, the way to avoid all of this is for the leaders of the General Assembly to accept the anti-union rhetoric he is looking to write into government policy. For Rauner has said he’s not willing to get serious about figuring out how to balance the state budget until he gets some of those proposals approved.

Even though it can be argued, and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has said, that such issues are irrelevant to the budget negotiation process and should not be tied into the financial talks that should have taken place last month.

Munger got way ahead of the process by talking about the process of government shutdown that is caused whenever a new fiscal year begins July 1 without an approved budget in place. Or is she admitting that Rauner has no intention of negotiating seriously?

THE IDEA BEING that government should not be spending money if there’s not a specific proposal outlining how the money gets spent.

What happens is that government still has its income and any expenses incurred prior to June 30 can still be paid – even if the bill is submitted after July 1. But any expenses incurred in the new fiscal year has to wait until a budget is approved.

In the past, there have been situations where government (or at least its most non-essential functions) got shut down for a few days. When the budget finally got signed into law, the bills eventually got paid.

Everything got restored to normal. Or as normal as anything ever is within Illinois state government.

MUNGER TRIED TO make it appear as though the actions she threatened for July (including a halt to Medicaid provider payments, no paychecks for state workers come the July 15 payday and state aid payments to public school districts ceasing as of Aug. 10, to name a few) were somehow unique and long-lasting.

Although if she were realistic, she’d be telling the governor himself about all these bad things and remind him that all of this could happen on his watch – IF he doesn’t quit playing his own partisan political games and start seriously trying to negotiate a workable budget.

Which is what Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton both appear to be trying to do in that they recognize that government has obligations that must be met – even if the CEO-minded Rauner would prefer to improve the state’s financial bottom line by cutting dead weight items.

I’m sure by his mindset, he wonders if we really need to have a Department of Public Aid. I’m sure government finances would be smaller if we could magically erase that agency from existence!

BUT WE CAN’T. And I’m sure there will have to be a realization that some seriously-needed services are going to have to be cut. To me, the sign of a responsible budget proposal is that everybody loses something they wanted to keep and nobody is happy with the end result.

Munger’s rhetoric comes across as though Rauner’s satisfaction is all that matters. It’s not realistic to expect that when one is a governor who has to govern with a Legislature of the opposite political party so solidly in control that they have the ‘veto proof’ majority.

Of course, Munger has her position because she’s a political appointee. Rauner got the authority to pick her to replace Judy Baar Topinka when she passed on in December. I don’t expect her to be unbiased.

But nobody should view her comments Wednesday as a “just the facts, ma’am” approach – it’s as ideologue as if it had come from Rauner’s mouth himself.

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Most Illinoisans couldn’t “fire” Madigan on Election Day even if they wanted to

MADIGAN: Soon to be "fired?"

It seems to be the common theme being touted by Republicans leading up to the Nov. 6 elections.

When they’re not getting all worked up over who they want to have run against Gov. Pat Quinn come 2014, they’re whining about how they want to dump Democrats from power come this year.

WHAT THIS REALLY comes down to is an anti-Chicago line of rhetoric. After all, the city dominates Cook County – which accounts for about 45 percent of the state’s population and an overwhelming share of its voters.

It is the reason that we have Pat Quinn as governor even though the Republican campaign of Bill Brady was dominant in the rest of Illinois.

So the idea being burned into the brains of many a non-Chicago voter is to think of any Democratic candidate as somehow being a Chicago hack (and I don’t mean a taxicab driver).

But voting against “Chicago” is an abstract concept, and one that can be hard to put into a catchy slogan.

WHICH IS WHY we’re getting the use of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, as a euphemism for all that is Chicago. That is why we’re getting all those “Fire Madigan” buttons and bumper stickers and t-shirts and whatever else the GOP marketing people can come up with to push their idea that comes across to urban ears as petty whining.

The “problem” is that we can’t literally “fire” Mike Madigan.

Worth your hard-earned money?

He can be voted out of office come Election Day. But he is so overwhelmingly dominant in the Southwest Side wards that comprise his legislative district that the bulk of the voters will NEVER dump him.

Even when fringe candidates try to stir up resentment among those locals, they fall flat on their faces. Mike Madigan ain’t goin’ nowhere!

THAT’S JUST A fact. The people who live there are probably proud (in a perverse sort of way that they’d never admit to) that their local legislator is the boss of state politics who can get away with telling the governor where to stuff it, and only occasionally has to answer to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

And when you come down to it, the idea of a “fire Madigan” slogan is quite trite. Because most of us don’t live in that legislative district. Telling someone who lives in Leland Grove, Ill., (just outside of Springfield, for those of you whose geographical knowledge doesn’t extend any further south than 119^th Street) to “fire Madigan” is pointless.

In fact, many of the places where this “fire Madigan” rhetoric is becoming popular are places that haven’t elected a Democrat to the Illinois House of Representatives since the days of cumulative voting when people picked multiple legislators and were required BY LAW to have representation by officials of each major political party.

This is truly a matter of preaching to the choir. Getting the already converted to whine about the fact that Chicago metro accounts for two-thirds of the state’s people and is asserting that influence on Election Day.

PERHAPS I’D BE a little more appreciative of the fact that some parts of Illinois feel neglected if it weren’t for the fact that I remember the bizarre 1994 elections and the two-year period in which Republican officials held control of every state government post of significance.

We actually had “Illinois House Minority Leader Michael Madigan, D-Chicago,” for a two-year period, and the majority party went out of its way to run an agenda that was even more blatantly partisan and as self-centered around their part of the state as they now claim Democrats are doing to favor Chicago.

Sentiments like “fire Madigan” come across as sounding like a repeat to those bad-old days when we had public officials who seriously believed that the key to Illinois’ economic success was to put a muzzle on the influence of its only city of significance.

Then again, petty whining probably is easier to do than trying to put together a credible political organization that could actually compete on Election Days of the future against Democrats for office in the Chicago area.

DO YOU SERIOUSLY want to send Mike Madigan into political retirement on your terms, rather than his own?

Perhaps a little more of an attempt to appeal to people outside your segment of the state would get you some credibility – instead of coming up with t-shirts and lame marketing slogans that probably will give the speaker himself something to chuckle about on the day after Election Day when Madigan’s party still holds a majority of the Illinois House seats.

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