C'mon gov, cut the nonsense, make a deal

July 11, 2007

If there were not millions of children waiting for information about the amount to be appropriated for public education, thousands of health-care providers waiting for reimbursement for services already provided and each of us wondering about the dignity of self-governance in Illinois, the governor's behavior in Springfield would just be bad political theater.

Blagojevich's conduct on the budget reminds me of a spoiled truant schoolboy who comes to school five months late (but by jet, in this case), doesn't have his homework assignment done, throws a tantrum when the teacher explains that he doesn't get promoted into the next fiscal year, then insists that those who came to school all session long should stay for summer school lessons on subjects they have already thoroughly covered during his absence. It is really bizarre.

Maybe what you do in Chicago politics when someone doesn't agree with you is start punishing them, in this case by calling "special sessions" that cost the taxpayers of the state $42,000 per day (or the cost of a teacher for a whole year's instruction). We have now had at least four of these and are no closer to a settled budget.

The governor has been told by the people of Illinois through their elected representatives that they do not agree with his plan to double the sales tax (in this case, collected by employers in the form of a gross receipts tax) by a vote of 0 "yes" to 107 ''no.'' They do not want to sell the lottery by 6 "yes" to 78 ''no.'' All indications are that a vote on the largest sale of 25-year pension obligation debt ($16 billion) in U.S. history would suffer the same ignominious rejection. He sanctimoniously and self-righteously insists that only he cares about the children, the sick and the poor . . . yet doesn't pay the current financial obligations (both operating and pension expenses) to serve the less fortunate. It is time to get serious, stop the egotistical self-indulgence and face practical realities that the rest of us face every payday about living within our current means.

It doesn't matter whether Blagojevich is a Democrat or Republican. He needs to accept the financial fact that the majority of people in Illinois feel that they are already paying enough in taxes. So, the first step is to calculate accurate projections of how much revenue will be collected in the current fiscal year and begin compromising to fairly allocate those funds to our public priorities. All of us should keep in mind that, when Blagojevich says current budget proposals ''cut'' money to education and health care, the truth is that we have $1 billion more tax money this year than we did last year.

Our priorities should be proper funding of education, capital spending to collectively rebuild our crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges and schools and paying our current obligations of unpaid bills and pension payments -- without expanding programs that sound good and feel good but that we simply can't afford right now.

When push comes to shove in the budget process, we need to face reality, work together and stop the wasteful nonsense.

Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora)

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