Years ago, a group of legislative back-benchers dubbed themselves “The Mushroom Caucus.” The moniker was apt, they explained, because leadership “keeps us in the dark and feeds us horse [manure].”
If Illinois voters are feeling a strong sense of kinship with those old-time lawmakers just a few days after the November election, they certainly can’t be blamed.
Since the February primary, they’ve watched the two major party candidates for governor studiously avoid any substantive discussion of the state’s unprecedented fiscal crisis. Instead, Gov. Pat Quinn, the Democratic incumbent, and state Sen. Bill Brady, the Republican challenger, have dished out vague generalities like cutting waste and growing the economy — details at some later date — all wrapped up in fuzzy math and self-contradicting statements. Neither has addressed the issue forthrightly nor provided the specifics of his plan to rescue the Land of Lincoln from functional bankruptcy.
As this column asked eight years ago, “Are these guys as fiscally ignorant as they sound, or are they merely dissembling for the sake of political expediency?” Back then, the mathematically challenged candidates, Democrat Rod Blagojevich and Republican Jim Ryan, were sparring over a then-record budget deficit of some $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2002.
While a huge sum, $1.2 billion is less than one-10th of the red ink now facing the state. In fact, warned Comptroller Dan Hynes in his most recent quarterly report, the current operating deficit could reach $15 billion as the new governor and incoming General Assembly try next spring to craft a budget for FY 2012.
So one would like to think the answer to the still-relevant question is even clearer today than it was in 2002 — both candidates hope voters will buy the pablum they’re peddling, rather than demand to know the painful facts of fiscal life in Illinois. They’ll find out soon enough once the electoral dust settles, the thinking seems to be, so in the meantime, let’s not say anything that could give the other guy another attack ad opening.
To his credit, Quinn has been more forthcoming than his GOP opponent. In his March budget address, he called for a 1 percentage point increase in income tax rates, good for some $3 billion, which the legislature quickly rejected. The governor then cut more than $1 billion from the budget lawmakers ultimately sent him, mostly from education and human services. But the current spending plan still anticipates a record-setting deficit at year’s end next June 30, in part because more than a quarter of FY 2011 revenues will go to pay the $6.4 billion in bills left over from the prior budget year.
Pressed to detail how he’d fill the rest of the budget hole, Quinn punts. Strategic borrowing, additional — but unspecified — budget cuts, economic growth through “investing in people,” maybe even more federal aid. The vision is murky at best.
Still, it’s a lot sharper — even more consistent — than Brady’s. The Bloomington senator is opposed to higher taxes or fees; indeed, he wants to reduce them to attract business to Illinois. In the meantime, though, his proposed cuts would add $1 billion or so to the existing deficit. Additionally, along with most of his fellow GOP lawmakers, Brady last spring blasted Quinn’s plan to borrow some $4 billion to make this year’s pension payment, and the initiative stalled. His campaign website asserts his “action plan” calls for “balancing the budget without relying on more crippling borrowing.” Yet in recent weeks, the senator has toyed with selling as much as $50 billion in bonds to reduce the state’s pension debt.
Brady’s main solution to the state’s fiscal woes, though, is to cut spending by at least 10 percent. At various times, he’s for cutting everything across the board, 10 cents on the dollar; at other times, he’s for selective cuts equating 10 percent of outlays. Either way, however, the numbers don’t work. The state’s current general funds budget is $26 billion. Employing sixth-grade arithmetic reveals that cutting 10 percent would equal $2.6 billion in savings, considerably less than the deficit. Even if the senator uses total appropriations, a $57 billion figure that includes federal aid, bond-financed construction and outlays from other restricted funds, the 10 percent yield is well below half the deficit.
Moreover, Brady won’t identify specific programs he’d slice, but his website promises he’ll leave essential services in while “cutting out the waste and political paybacks.” Asked for more detail, the senator says he won’t know until he’s in office and can order a special audit to ferret out waste. That seems a stretch from a guy who’s been in the legislature for 17 years, including serving the last four on the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, whose specialty is financial expertise.
Perhaps most implausible is Brady’s campaign pledge to both cut taxes and balance the budget in his first year in office. While campaign-stop audiences love the rhetoric, it’s far removed from the fiscal reality: Whoever wins the governorship will have to raise some taxes, make further spending cuts and borrow more money to help shore up state finances for the coming fiscal year.
Odds are either Brady or Quinn will be that winner. Neither has done much to prepare the state’s citizenry for what lies ahead, so folks who’ve relied only on the candidates’ talking points likely are in for a rude awakening.
To quote again this author’s November 2002 column: “What’s important, though, is that voters know before the election the choices each candidate would make, which taxes he’d raise, which programs he’d cut, or what combination of the two he’d pursue to restore fiscal order. Absent such candor, the question persists: Are they liars or are they fools? Neither alternative seems likely to inspire confidence in the next governor.”
Amen.
In fact, warned Comptroller Dan Hynes in his most recent quarterly report, the current operating deficit could reach $15 billion as the new governor and incoming General Assembly try next spring to craft a budget for FY 2012.
Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield.
Illinois Issues, November 2010
