As a kid growing up in a small Midwestern town, I often overheard my father, who owned a local business, talk about his customers who didn’t pay their bills. There was a word he used, an epithet so repulsive that I decided early on I never wanted it applied to me.

Deadbeat.

Please don’t get the impression that my father or other local business owners were heartless. If a debtor couldn’t pay his bills because he had lost his job, faced a family crisis or became ill, the businesses made concessions. So long as the unfortunate debtor made an effort to pay and was trying to remedy the bad situation, he didn’t fall into the deadbeat category. No, deadbeats were those who didn’t pay their bills, didn’t appear to care how they harmed the people they owed and seemed to have no inclination to remedy the situation.

Sort of like Illinois state government.

OK, it may be simplistic to apply the small-town Midwestern values of my Eisenhower-era youth to a 21st century enterprise as large and complex as the government of the fifth-largest state in the nation. Or is it? Shouldn’t the collection of lawyers, business owners, insurance agents and other well-educated professionals who pose as our elected representatives be able to figure out that not paying your bills — creating havoc and untold harm for constituents who provide goods or services to the state — isn’t just an unfortunate result of the economic downturn? It’s ethically reprehensible. It violates everything they espouse in their speeches and brochures. It’s just plain wrong.

But like some of those who owed money to businesses in my small hometown, our leaders don’t appear to care enough about the harm they’re causing to do anything about it. As Jamey Dunn’s article elsewhere in this issue points out, state government’s creditors are losing their businesses. The stress is straining marriages. Those who already have provided help to our most needy citizens aren’t being paid and are closing their doors to others whose lives are being devastated by the economic crisis. Schools are preparing to lay off teachers. Doctors may soon turn away patients with state health insurance.

Yet our supposed leaders can’t seem to get it into their heads that the situation is not simply an unfortunate business reality. It’s not a political rallying point. It’s not an irritating condition that will go away on its own. It’s way past that. After months and months — with seemingly many more months to come — their inaction has moved into the realm of unconscionable cruelty. And when all is said — and nothing is done — it’s just plain wrong.

If all that sounds overwrought and dramatic, it is. People are suffering mightily because our state government is a deadbeat. What will it take to finally break through the hardened, cynical shell that apparently surrounds our elected representatives and insulates them from the chaos and devastation their inaction is causing?

It’s way past finger-pointing time, as well. The detritus that now litters Illinois’ economic landscape is the result of a violent crash of political and economic forces that have been moving relentlessly toward one another on a collision course for years. Demagoguery. Greed. Unrealistic expenditures. Broken promises. Irresponsibility. Delayed decisions. And yes, even good intentions. Both political parties are to blame. And both political parties are shirking their responsibility — no, their ethical obligation — to clean up the debris and rebuild as quickly as possible.

Instead, the out-of-power Republicans are using their constituents’ misery as a bargaining chip to advance their agenda — pension and Medicaid reforms, social service cuts, smaller government — and as a way to perhaps regain political power, though God knows why anyone would want it under conditions that will only grow worse throughout the spring, summer and fall. They have no incentive to help ease the crisis when they can use it to their political advantage. Moral imperative be damned.

The Democrats are no better. They control both legislative chambers and the governor’s office and can pass legislation to help alleviate the crisis now, without help from the Republicans. But all bets are that they won’t because they want political cover from Republicans on any hard decisions, such as tax increases or unpopular budget cuts, so they don’t jeopardize their electoral majority come November. This is Illinois, after all, where political self-interest trumps public responsibility every time.

Regardless of which party holds the reins of state government after the votes are counted in November, those in charge will face even more difficult decisions than they do now. Despite campaign slogans about budget cuts versus tax increases, most observers agree there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The only realistic solution is a combination of cuts and taxes, along with fervent prayers for an economic rebound. 

All that posturing is just politics as usual, you may say. And I’m not naïve enough to discount the obvious fact that politicians play politics. But don’t we ever reach a point when political considerations must yield to concerns about the welfare of the constituency? And with a budget deficit expected to top $11 billion — more than 40 percent of the state’s annual general fund — and a $3.5 billion backlog in unpaid bills, and with businesses failing because the state won’t pay its bills, and with social service agencies and educational institutions on the brink of collapse, haven’t we reached that time?

Waiting until after the November election will only bring more pain to more people. And if reason doesn’t persuade our elected leaders to — just for one brief moment — put politics aside and work together to do what must be done, perhaps an appeal to their basic humanity might crack their until-now seemingly impermeable shells.

Given that one of the fundamental tenets of the grass-roots voter movement is disgust with political bickering on the national stage, our elected leaders in Illinois might be wise to apply a statement by the aforementioned President Eisenhower — also a small-town Midwesterner — to their own situation: “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

Just as appropriate might be a caution often attributed — perhaps wrongly — to 18th century Irish philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

It’s ethically reprehensible. It violates everything they espouse in their speeches and brochures. It’s just plain wrong.

Dana Heupel can be reached at heupel.dana@uis.edu.

Illinois Issues, March 2010