by Steve Dunford

In two days,  Illinois will enter its third year without a state budget.  The state has a junk bond credit rating.  Yesterday the multi-state lottery games Mega Millions and Powerball pulled out of the state.

Governor Bruce Rauner called the General Assembly to special session.  Both houses just gaveled in and gaveled out within a few minutes.

This is how I see things in the state capital.  No matter who is elected governor or who we send as representatives to Springfield, speaker of the house Mike Madigan rules it with an iron fist.

I have used this as an illustration in several conversations.  Madigan was elected to the Illinois house in 1970.  He became speaker of the house in 1982, and has been continuously, other than between 1995-97, when the Republicans controlled the house.  He was senate majority leader then.

I am fat, bald, and grey.  I was also bald in 1970, I was born in April of that year.  I was twelve years old, and in the 7th grade when he became speaker of the house.

In his time in the House, he has been trough eight governors, six since he has been in a leadership role.  Three of the eight governors have been or still is in prison.  When he was elected as speaker of the house Jim Thompson was governor, who Thompson is another poster boy for term limits in this state in my view.

The standoff’s in which Madigan has this “my way or the highway” attidute is not new since the election of Bruce Rauner.  I am calling it the way I see it.  When Pat Quinn was governor the two quarreled at times, but Quinn had a rubber stamp passing legislation.

When Rod Blagoevich was governor there were standoffs so bad between Madigan, Blago, and then Senate president Emil Jones, that US Senator Dick Durbin was called in to mediate to heal the factions of the Democrats.

Madigan is also the chairman of the Democratic Party in the state, which gives him double power.  As Democratic Party Chairman, we was able to witness first hand the sleaze the state Democratic party threw out there in the 117th district race.  It was disgraceful, and I am gong to leave it at that.

I have been watching this closely.  What I am seeing is either Rauner bows down to Madigan’s wishes, or we will enter the third year without a state budget.

One of Madigan’s demands that I noticed was his demand that Rauner would not veto Senate bill.  This is a bailout of the Chicago Public School system and would give Southern Illinois students the short end of the stick.

Senate Bill 1124, Amendment 3, drafted by senate Republicans is a compromise bill, that will be a more fair and equitable way of school funding.  It is gaining bi-partisan support.  You can see the formula on State Senator Dale Fowlers, website at http://senatorfowler.com.

Here is where we are at.  The state is in such a mess, and I hate to say it but a tax increase is going to happen.  What is sickening is the democrats in both houses are wanting this to be retroactive.  I have seen figures that for the rest of the year, there will be a payroll deduction pushing 6%.

Being a fiscal conservative, I feel a tax increase slows down the economy.  In any tax situation, a more fair and equitable way is a sales tax.

Read some of the monthly figures that are being distributed to our schools.  There have been several life-safety and capital improvements to our districts throughout the county.

When sales taxes are raised, everyone contributes.  I hate to go that route for our state, but that is where I am afraid we are heading.

Let me address the pension issue this state is facing.  I have had conversations with two retired  state troopers over the last week in fear of losing their pensions.

One is recently retired, one has been retired for several years after serving over thirty years?  Do both men deserve their pensions?  In my view, every penny.  How many holidays did they miss with their families.  How many times were they out in blizzards and severe weather keeping us safe.  A good retirement is a tradeoff for the sacrifice of their service.

Teachers Retirement System or TRS is on fumes in this state as we speak.  How TRS works it is a trust fund for retired teachers in which they have contributed to over the years.   School teachers do not pay into Social Security.  This fund has been raided for other causes.

I fear for the future of retired teachers, and some teachers that are getting close to retirement age.  Ones that have dedicated their lives to the education of our children, should not have to worry about how they are going to live in the future.

Other than politicians dipping into pension funds, in which both parties are guilty this is how we got into this mess.  Whether you want to believe it or not, patronage is still alive in the state.

It was not as bad when Bruce Rauner was elected, but it was horrible when Rod Blagoevich was elected.  So that positions were filled by members of their own party, several were bought out and offered a pension for life.  In several instances, the state would bring the recent retirees back as a consultant.

I know of individuals that were in their early 40’s and had under twenty years of state employment this happened to.  You are looking at paying these individuals a very good pension for half of their lives. I know of several this happened to when Blago was elected.  I do not fault the individuals at all.  If it was me, it would have been an offer I could not refuse.

In this process, there has been a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour in the state.  There are those who say this will raise additional tax dollars to the state by increasing wages.  All this will cause massive inflation, and will continue to stunt the growth of a stagnant economy in the state.  There will be a lot of people signing up for unemployment too.

There are very few employers in this county of people that work by the hour that pay fifteen bucks an hour.  Most are employed in neighboring counties.

Here is another side of the coin.  There are some that look down upon people who work for minimum wage.  No matter how advanced a society gets, there will still have to be people to cook your food, check you out at the grocery store and stock the shelves.  It is better to be a productive member of society than sitting around doing nothing.

We live in a corrupt state.  A state that has became the laughing stock of the nation.  A state that the population is hemorrhaging..   What is sad that “We the People” will be the ones that suffer, having to bail it out.

The ones that have been suffering and will continue to suffer are the ones that are most vulnerable.  The state has just flat skipped state aid payments over time.  Because of this Zeigler-Royalton could not meet payroll for their teachers late last school year, just as an example.

Mike Madigan needs to go.  The only way to get him gone is term limits.  Otherwise, he will run Springfield until he can’t no more.

I am not going to give Governor Rauner a free pass either.  My biggest fault with him is he is running for reelection through this process.  The primary is several months away, and it is more than a year to the general election.  Pull the campaign adds until we see an end to this.

The most thing we can do is pray.  Pray for a reasonable solution that both parties can agree to.  Most of all pray for the most vulnerable in our society that would be affected the most.