Feb. 19--"This is the starting gun," said state Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno, referring to the budget proposal Gov. Bruce Rauner revealed Wednesday, "not the checkered flag."
Actually, it's more like the red cape -- an illusion designed to provoke furious, enervating but scattered responses that wear down and ultimately soften the opponent.
And yes, I'm tempted to lower my head and charge.
A 7 percent cut in funding for health care services for the poor? A 30 percent-plus reduction in state spending on higher education? A halving of the share of state income tax revenues sent to municipalities? Cuts to the Department of Children and Family Services and the reduction in or elimination of programs helping people with autism, epilepsy, mental illness and addiction? Reductions in mass transit funding?
A budget that's only "balanced" if it includes $2.2 billion in phantom savings from a proposed change in the pension law that is sure to face an extended legal challenge.
Paw. Snort.
But no.
I, for one, am not going to waste a perfectly good dudgeon on a set of stimulating hypotheticals, most of which will never pass the General Assembly.
The spending package the Rauner administration unveiled isn't so much a budget as it is a dystopian peek into an austere future, the outline of a worst-case scenario designed to cause agitation and fear in Democratic legislators.
Most of the details are, at this point, irrelevant:
--While the budget book Rauner released was bold, his budget address to the General Assembly that preceded it was wimpy. The governor spoke mostly in general terms about "decisions that may seem unpopular in the short run" and "difficult but necessary choices" but failed to mention the truly unpopular and difficult elements of his plan.
He put the high gloss of business buzz phrases on the few cuts he did mention. The reduction in funding for municipalities is a "modest cutback" that will be accompanied by changes in the law that will give local "voters the tools to save hundreds of millions of dollars through consolidation, employment flexibility and compensation restructuring."
Reductions in state pension programs will "empower our workforce."
Rauner never said "sacrifice," a word and theme that dominated his inaugural address last month. Instead he touted a property-tax freeze, increases in kindergarten-12th-grade education funding and better funding for public safety while taking broad whacks at "waste and inefficiency" and "conflicts of interest in state government."
--I had to read the speech after he delivered it because I found Rauner's folksy delivery so distracting. Twenty-seven times in the 23-minute address, he dropped the "g" on words ending in the "ing" syllable -- "for far too long we have been livin' beyond our means, spendin' money that Illinois taxpayers could not afford," for example.
All told, if you're keepin' score at home, he dropped 47 percent of his "g's," down slightly from the 51 percent he dropped during the Feb. 4 State of the State speech.
--Rauner told the joint session of the legislature that, "Before (tax increases) can be discussed, reform is essential. Before we ask the people of Illinois to pay more to fund state government, we must ensure taxpayers are getting value for their money."
Value for money is an excellent goal. But so are secure national borders. And Rauner's line in sand reminded me of the insistence of Republicans in the U.S. Congress that, before we pass changes to immigration law to address the status of nearly 12 million undocumented workers now in our country, we must first "secure our borders."
Both are recipes for inaction. Both presuppose government's inability to turn several dials at once to move compromises forward.
--And, of course, in the end, that's what's almost certainly going to happen in Illinois.
Political reality will force Rauner to back down, while fiscal reality will force the state's top Democrats to step up.
They'll negotiate a budget that balances new taxes with service cuts and changes in the law that at least one side will trumpet as "reform."
It will be more like a chess match than an auto race or a bullfight.
Though I won't promise that some folks won't get gored in the end.
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