Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will deliver his budget address at noon Wednesday, or an hour after the deadline passes for the Cardinals and Albert Pujols to reach an agreement on a new contract. (SI.com is reporting St. Louis has offered more than $200 million over eight years, while Jayson Stark of ESPN.com says Pujols walks, it will be a business decision.)
From Illinois Statehouse News on the Quinn budget:
Republicans at the Illinois Capitol spent the day before Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address complaining that they have not heard much about the spending plan. And what they have heard is not acceptable.
But statehouse Democrats say the state’s problems haven’t changed, and neither have the solutions.
The governor’s office stayed tight-lipped about specifics of the new state spending plan. An off-the-record briefing to lawmakers and reporters Tuesday evening left as many questions as it did provide answers.
Illinois is still facing a multi-billion dollar deficit and is projected to once again not have enough money to pay for a full year of state services. Quinn has proposed a combination of billions in borrowing and millions in cuts to remedy the situation.
“It think it’s a lean budget,” said Quinn spokesman Mica Matsoff. “(The budget) focuses the burden across all areas of state government.”
Democrats still control the statehouse, but lost just enough races last fall to give Republicans a seat at the table when it comes time to borrow. And Senate GOP boss, Christine Radogno, has said already they won’t support it.
“I’ve told (Gov. Quinn) multiple times since January that if he submits a budget that assumes borrowing (will be part of the mix), he will not get any Republican support,” she said.
State Sen. Pam Althoff, R-Crystal Lake, said they’ve heard these same cries for years that if lawmakers will only give just a little more, then everything will be OK.
“We need to say no. We need to go back to the board and find out where we’re going to make cuts,” Althoff said. “We need to be responsible with the money we’re going to obtain from this new income tax increase.”
State lawmakers last month raised the personal income tax increase by nearly 67 percent, from 3 percent to 5 percent, which is expected to garner close to $7 billion annually.
But as GOP lawmakers talked tough about turning their backs on borrowing, the Quinn administration quietly circulated lists that tallied the billions owed to state vendors. Each lawmaker got a list that showed which of their local businesses are still waiting for checks from Springfield.
Quinn has said in the past he’d like to borrow as much as $8.75 billion to erase close to $6.6 billion in unpaid bills.
When lawmakers approved the income tax increase last month, they did not act on the borrowing proposal.
State Rep Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said there will be new money coming into Springfield from the tax hike, but not nearly enough to pay those past-due bills.
“The tax hike alone is helpful, but it is not nearly enough,” said Mautino “There is going to have to be additional borrowing to cover the state’s bills.”
Mautino said he does expect lawmakers to agree on some kind of borrowing plan, but he said the price tag and time line will have to be worked out.
The broad strokes of Quinn’s budget — borrowing, cuts, efficiencies — have been known for months. It still remains to be seen how those broad themes will impact local communities or social service providers.
And even though Quinn will unveil his budget at noon on Wednesday, it could be months or more before the local impact begins to be felt.
