Instead of “shaking up” Springfield as he promised four years ago, Gov. Bruce Rauner took the final step Monday to acclimating to the Illinois political culture.
He went along to get along.
On Monday, flanked by a bipartisan assortment of lawmakers, Rauner signed a budget that is likely somewhere between $600 million and $1.5 billion out of balance.
This item is available in full to subscribers.
To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account and connect your subscription to it by clicking here.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active, online-only subscription then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
Instead of “shaking up” Springfield as he promised four years ago, Gov. Bruce Rauner took the final step Monday to acclimating to the Illinois political culture.
He went along to get along.
On Monday, flanked by a bipartisan assortment of lawmakers, Rauner signed a budget that is likely somewhere between $600 million and $1.5 billion out of balance.
Nothing unusual there. That’s the way Illinois has been doing business for decades — except for that awful two-and-one-half years when it went without a budget. And business as usual is why the state is broke.
The legislative process is supposed to be transparent. But when it comes to the state budget, it rarely is.
During the waning days of the legislative session, caucus leaders filed into a closed room and negotiated with the governor. Once a budget agreement was reached behind those locked doors, Senators found themselves voting on the 1,245-page measure a few hours later.
Think any of them knew exactly what they were voting on? No way.
Is this unusual in Springfield? No. But it has never served the public well.
And Bruce Rauner has done little to reform the process.
Taxpayers and bondholders deserve to know how our money is being spent. But the budget document is so opaque it is often hard to discern whether major new spending initiatives have been slipped into the spending plan.