The headline on the print edition of Friday’s Chicago Tribune read “Older foster youths hit by cuts in Rauner budget.”* I disagree. Let me explain. I don’t disagree that it could hurt some people if Illinois stops helping young adults who were in foster care but are now past age 18. What I disagree with is calling this “Rauner[’s] budget” because the budget the headline is talking about does not represent what Bruce Rauner would like to do; it represents what Bruce Rauner is being forced to do by the situation he found when he entered office in January.
Consider the situation Bruce Rauner found when he entered office:
- A state that had been spending more than it took in for a decade.
- A state with the biggest unfunded pension liability and lowest credit rating in the country.
- A state where, in 2011, the Democratic legislature and Democratic governor had provided for a temporary increase in the state income rate from 3% to 5% and had also provided the rate would go back down to 3.75% on January 1, 2015.
- A state where, in 2014, the Democratic governor tried to get the Democratic legislature to keep the income tax rate at 5%, but they wouldn’t do it.
- A state where the Democratic governor and the Democratic legislature adopted a 2014-15 budget that spent money as if the income tax rate was staying at 5% for the whole fiscal year, even though they did not do this, which meant there was a huge hole in the budget for the second half of the 2014-15 fiscal year.
That was what Bruce Rauner found when he took office in January and that is the basis upon which a budget had to be proposed for 2015-16. In other words, the budget that Bruce Rauner proposed for 2015-16 is not the budget he wanted to propose; it’s the budget that he has been forced to propose by the Democratic governor and the Democratic legislature that were in office last year and the years before.
I believe Pat Quinn wanted to increase the state income tax rate back up to 5% as of January 1, 2015, but House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton couldn’t get it passed. Michael Madigan has been House Speaker since Ronald Reagan was in his first term (except for two years in the 1990s), but I am told by people he isn’t as powerful as you think. He can’t get legislators to vote for something if they don’t want to. I don’t believe it. I think he could – if he wanted to. After all, what is the point of being Speaker if you don’t do something with it other than staying Speaker? If Michael Madigan believed that the budget Bruce Rauner had to propose is as bad as its critics claim, he could do something about it. Or, more accurately, he could have done something about it last year. Because when he, and John Cullerton, let the state income tax rate drop back to 3.75%, while at the same time passing a budget based on a 5% rate, they knew what was going to happen.
If Bruce Rauner had come into office in a state with a balanced budget and an unfunded pension liability that was within reasonable limits, he would have been able to propose a different budget. The state would be able to help more people and do more things that perhaps the state ought to do.
But that’s not Illinois. Illinois can’t keep spending more than it takes in. In fact, Illinois can’t even spend the full amount it takes in. A decade of overspending means that Illinois now has to spend less than it takes in – because it has to set aside at least some money each year to pay off the billions of dollars of unpaid bills it has accumulated.
If people think that spending shouldn’t be cut for foster care for young adults, they need to explain where the state can reduce spending so it can continue to spend on foster care – or they need to get the Democratic state legislature to increase the state income tax. Because there is only so much money, and Illinois can’t spend more than it has. Not anymore.
And one final thing. When people complain about the cuts in the state budget, they need to realize it’s not Bruce Rauner’s budget they are talking about. It is the budget, and the budget choices, that Pat Quinn, Michael Madigan, and John Cullerton left him.
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* The headline on the online version is slightly different, but it still talks about the “Rauner budget.”
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