Feb. 17--"Let's stop wastin' time by votin' on spending bills you know must be vetoed -- and then doin' it again and again and again . . ."
-- Gov. Bruce Rauner during Wednesday's budget address
By my count, Gov. Rauner used 112 words ending with the -ing syllable during his budget speech Wednesday in Springfield, and he dropped the terminal 'g' 57 times. That's a folksiness score of 51 percent, a significant decrease from the record high 62 percent he achieved three weeks ago in his 2016 state of the state speech, but on par witht the 51 percent score in his 2015 State of the State and the 47 percent mark he hit in his 2015 budget address.
As ever, yes, admittedly, this post ignores substance and goes right to style. But I am among those who are distracted by this affectation that I have to read Rauner's speeches in order to focus on the substance.
As for substance, I didn't hear anything particularly new -- no fresh approach, no third-way solution -- to make me think he'd moved us closer to a resolution. I will await the expert analysis of the actual budget documents -- released today -- to see if I might be wrong about that.
(Illinois Public Radio's Amanda Vinicky last year: Lookin' Into Gov. Rauner's Missing G's)
