Chicago Tribune Editorial: More profiles in failure

Chicago Tribune Editorial: More profiles in failure
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
July 17, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0717edit1jul17,0,19833.story


Did you see what happened in Springfield this week? The same legislators who want you to think they passed real ethics reforms have failed you anew, this time in their stewardship of state finances.

They've passed a new budget that dodges crucial and maddeningly overdue spending reforms. They've put off paying past-due bills, further enshrining the State of Illinois as a deadbeat. And they've borrowed taxpayers into near-oblivion.

Don't let big numbers and legislative complexities camouflage just how irresponsibly the Democrats who run state government are behaving. Imagine that your household couldn't meet its obligations, continued to overspend -- and steadily piled up more debt. Would you drastically reduce your expenditures? Find more economical ways of buying the goods and services you can't live without? Or would you borrow still more money and throw a great party?

If you're the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn, the answer is: You'd borrow more, including billions for new construction -- costly pork-barrel projects included. Why? Construction projects are popular -- witness the throng of labor leaders and local politicians who showed up this week to cheer Quinn as he signed a $31 billion capital bill at Marshall High School on Chicago's West Side. A capital bill is a gift that keeps on giving: It guarantees the pols lots of election-year ribbon-cuttings.

This eagerness of the state's ruling Democrats to pander rather than to make difficult decisions about how Illinois spends money reminds us of an iconic scene in "Animal House": The frat brothers escape a plight by changing the subject to, "Road trip!" And off they go, as irresponsible as the lawmakers who avoid meeting expenses by putting them on the taxpayers' credit card.

Illinoisans won't only be borrowing money to pay for all of the lawmakers' construction projects. They'll be borrowing another $3.5 billion just to cover state employees' pension fund contributions -- what should be a routine operating expense, not an excuse to take out yet another mortgage against the future.

Granted, many citizens will be grateful that lawmakers left Springfield without passing a big income-tax increase. Trouble is, they also didn't bother to make the game-changing reforms -- in ethics and in spending -- that would give Illinoisans a sense that the state is on the mend.

The Illinois Reform Commission's proposals for tough new law enforcement tools to fight public corruption? Those could have hit too close to home. A recall amendment for the state constitution so voters could toss politicians out of office? Forget it. A computerized redrawing of legislative districts to diminish the power of party bosses? Nah. A less generous pension formula for new state hires? Didn't happen. A serious modernizing of Medicaid? Maybe some other day.

Laurence Msall of Chicago's Civic Federation has a difficult time enumerating the litany of failures; every time he sounds as if he's finished, he thinks of one more: People who do business with the state? They have to keep borrowing money to meet their payrolls because Deadbeat Illinois still won't pay its bills on time. That $1 billion a year in new revenue to pay off bonds for the capital construction bill? Majority Democrats could have earmarked some of that money to offset cuts in social service programs -- but that would have meant fewer ribbon-cuttings and, well, you know.

This isn't how Mayor Richard Daley addresses shortfalls in city of Chicago finances. He's laying off workers and reducing other costs, not because he wants to, but because he's confronting the challenges of his office.

He's making decisions.

State government? No such spine. There, everybody plays for more time -- as if, by magic, the need to restructure how this state does business will vanish.