The other day, a Springfield radio talk show host related his recent visit to a new public high school in Waterloo. He told listeners that his other job, working in traffic safety for state government, had taken him to the former high school in the Metro East city several times over the years. 

The difference in the atmosphere of the new school building, which opened last August, was palpable. The decaying former high school had exuded tension, said the radio host, who is a former public school teacher. The new one is bright and inviting and radiates a positive environment for learning.

Voters in 2006 had passed a referendum to build the new $35 million high school. The radio host, an acknowledged Republican, admitted that he generally doesn’t support tax increases but concluded that this school is an example of public money wisely used. 

That’s how our system of self-government is supposed to work: Citizens determine a need, and they willingly make sacrifices to fill it. Sadly, though, the radio host and school district voters are apparently in the minority. In the February primary elections, 12 referendums to increase school taxes or bonding indebtedness across Illinois failed, while only eight passed, according to ballotpedia.org, which analyzed documents from the General Assembly and State Board of Elections. In the April 2009 consolidated elections, 10 failed and six passed.

But it’s not just schools. More and more often, voters are unwilling to increase any government spending. But they also object to reducing government services. Polls released during the past year by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University bear that out:

Last fall, a statewide survey by the institute determined that 56.5 percent of Illinoisans believed Illinois’ state budget troubles could be solved by cutting government waste. Of the remaining respondents, 27.3 percent said a combination of cuts and tax increases was the answer, while only 9.5 supported a tax increase alone.

But when asked in the same poll where to make sacrifices, 84.7 percent objected to cuts in K-12 education, 61.4 percent were against cuts in colleges and public universities, 79.8 percent opposed cuts in public safety, 63 percent didn’t want cuts in natural resources programs, 72.4 percent said no to cuts in programs for poor people, 85.3 percent disagreed with cuts to programs for people with mental or physical disabilities. Even 53.4 percent resisted cuts in pension benefits for state employees, while 39.5 percent favored that approach.

In other words, although more than half of those polled believed in general that cuts to state government are the solution to the $13 billion budget deficit, when asked about specific cuts, they overwhelmingly rejected all of them.

OK, then. Maybe cuts in government services aren’t the answer. Then the other solution is to increase state revenue. Right?

Wrong. Only 32.1 percent of poll respondents supported raising the state income tax from 3 percent to 4.5 percent. Only 21.4 percent favored increasing the state sales tax. Applying the sales tax to services such as haircuts fared a little better but still only garnered 44.1 percent support. About the same percentage, 44.5, favored expanding legal gambling, and only 25.9 percent thought selling state assets would be a good idea.

A Simon Institute survey in April that polled only registered voters in southern Illinois produced similar results. They supported cuts in general (60.1 percent) but overwhelmingly opposed specific cuts, as well as tax increases and expanded gambling.

As I write this, state lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn are still wrestling over a budget for the next fiscal year, but it’s pretty clear that — for now, at least — it won’t include many specific service cuts or tax increases. Our elected officials are taking a lot of heat — and deservedly so — for putting their own political interests ahead of the needs of Illinois citizens. Courage is in short supply right now in the Capitol, and there’s an overabundance of political posturing and self-preservation.

But an argument could be made that our elected representatives are simply embodying the wishes of their constituents. That the voters they represent have indeed indicated that they want chaos and fumbling and flip-flopping. After all, what’s a politician to do when placed in a no-win situation? The only realistic options are to avoid or postpone any decision that will bring certain trouble.

Illinois voters aren’t alone in their indecision. In California, the only state in worse financial shape, a Field Poll in March showed voter support for cuts only in correctional facilities (56 percent) and parks and recreation programs (52 percent). And the majorities in those two areas only emerged when that state’s financial crisis reached epic proportions. In 2008, when the problems first became evident, none of the 12 state government areas suggested for cuts garnered support from half of those polled.

“I read most of the major polls routinely,” John Jackson, a visiting political science professor at the Simon Institute, told Chicago Tribunecolumnist Eric Zorn in April. “And my long-term reading of those polls certainly seems to indicate that we want it all while damning the government and taxes.”

Most everyone agrees that “civic engagement” is one way to combat the public policy problems facing America. Cited as a definition of that term on the New York Times’ website is a paragraph from Civic Responsibility and Higher Education, edited by Thomas Ehrlich:

“A morally and civically responsible individual recognizes himself or herself as a member of a larger social fabric and therefore considers social problems to be at least partly his or her own; such an individual is willing to see the moral and civic dimensions of issues, to make and justify informed moral and civic judgments, and to take action when appropriate.”

But what happens when individuals are aware of problems and simply choose to ignore their responsibility to solve them? Can we expect elected representatives to act decisively without understanding the clear will of their constituents?

State politicians should be held accountable for their actions, as well as for their inaction. But they’re not entirely — maybe not even mostly — to blame.

Perhaps, as the comic strip character Pogo famously observed, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

More and more often, voters are unwilling to increase any government spending. But they also object to reducing government services.

Illinois Issues, June 2010