As Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich takes his victory lap for helping to craft a state budget that could only be balanced by making off with $2.2 billion in state pension funds, one can ask: Why is this man smiling?
He and the lawmakers responsible for this abomination may regard the budget as good news for themselves because they naively assume taxpayers will credit them for creating a “balanced” $54.4 billion budget without a tax increase.
But to paraphrase a famous political line: “I’ve seen budgets, and this is no budget.” It’s bad news for taxpayers and a road map to disaster.
This is a carving of the hog to provide huge helpings of government victuals for insiders and special interests. As usual, taxpayers weren’t invited to the banquet because the hog was butchered, roasted and dressed out back, out of sight. Taxpayers will be told that it’s too late to change any of the portions or cut out any fat. You can’t “uncook” the pig to make it leaner and healthier. For some reason, Blagojevich thought a state fly-around would make this pig fly with the public.
The important thing, said a Blagojevich spokeswoman, is that the budget “does just what we set out to do. It helps people make a better life for themselves.” Well, not quite; it lacks the pension reforms the governor had promised and it depends on the kind of borrowing against the future that he recently condemned.
By now, you may have read of some of the programs that “help people” improve their lots, including historic bridges, state fairs and ballet ensembles. The Tribune reported more detail Sunday on how lawmakers wrangled their way to repaved parking lots and repainted water towers in exchange for their votes on the budget.
Casinos actually get a tax reduction. The top riverboat casino tax would fall to 50 percent from 70 percent. Under a 2003 law, the drop was automatic, unless rescinded by the General Assembly. Democratic lawmakers let it happen, thinking a deficit called for a tax reduction, but only for a special interest.
Criticizing this kind of thing is dangerous, because it makes you anti-people. For example: Everyone can feel good about the additional $313 million for education, right? “It’s for the kids,” you see, and who can be against that? Except that the new money is being “borrowed” from the pension and other funds that were set aside precisely to protect their future integrity from such raids. And each student will “get” a munificent $200 worth of extra education, which should make a big difference. Still, it almost satisfies those who interminably insist that “we need more money” for education. I say “almost” because the education lobby wanted almost twice as much, and Blagojevich initially had proposed “only” $140 million. The $313 million will do, for now.
Take another budget mantra, “early childhood education,” one of the state’s fastest-growing expenses. Who can be against helping out kids who face a life of ruin thanks to incompetent or abusive parents? Getting them out of the house early and into “quality” preschool “settings” is almost universally recognized as a good thing. Thus, the state budget gives early childhood education an extra $30 million.
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Which raises the question: How much is enough?
Next budget go-around, “early child advocacy groups” will be back complaining that the program is “underfunded,” that it faces “urgent, unmet needs” and that “we’re breaking our compact with future generations” unless we cough up more millions. That’s because this year’s bonus for the preschool lobby is another step to what it really wants: “universal” preschool, in which every 3- and 4-year-old child in the state–regardless of financial need–receives state-guaranteed (and funded) “access” to an “affordable, high-quality program taught by qualified teachers.” That, of course, means higher pay to attract “better” teachers, all-encompassing state regulations to squeeze out home-based day care, busybodies rushing here and there to certify programs and enforce the rules, and lots more money–more than $400 million to get it started. Shouldn’t someone ask, before it’s too late, if it’s worth it, or will it suddenly become reality after another last-minute, backroom deal?
Funny how the assumption around the capital rotunda is that it takes “courage” to provide more money, when saying “no” actually takes more courage. Not enough lawmakers did, and if Blagojevich really wants to be that knight on a charger, he can use his amendatory veto to straighten out this mess.
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