Like many before it, a legislative hearing this week on the impact of Illinois’ budget impasse included a good deal of blame-laying between Democratic legislators and the Republican governor’s office.
Still, there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement on where the hard edge of the impact is landing — on those least equipped to deal with it.
“There’s no ambiguity about who’s bearing the brunt of the consequence, and that’s people who have the least voice in the political process and who are the most vulnerable,” said Sen. Daniel Biss, chairman of the Senate Human Services Committee.
“It’s really a situation that all of us should find deeply, personally unacceptable and that we need to resolve quickly,” said Biss, D-Evanston.
Tim Nuding, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget director, said the governor’s office is doing all it can, but the burden remains on the Legislature to pass a balanced budget.
“We’re doing what we can do with tools we’ve been given to manage toward a balanced budget,” Nuding said.
The panel’s Democrats didn’t warm to the idea the budget mess was entirely on the Legislature or particularly on majority Democrats.
“I just find it kind of unhelpful and it sort of makes my teeth hurt to hear this consistent effort to throw the hot potato of blame around when, in fact, there is no possible resolution to these these problems that exists exclusively in the executive or legislative branches,” Biss said.
Although he nodded in recognition of Biss’ point regarding a three-branched government, Nuding said it was disingenuous for Democrats to say the governor could have simply crafted a workable budget by applying his veto pen to an underfunded Democratic spending plan.
Rauner’s simply using his power as governor to rewrite certain lines or to reduce certain amounts wasn’t going to get the job done, Nuding said.
“That’s a myth,” Nuding said, explaining that neither math nor the law nor the General Assembly as it is now constituted would allow for such an easy answer.
“To sit there and make a characterization that we could have solved this problem simply with the veto pen — that is just not accurate,” he said.
Well into the third month of its new fiscal year and operating without a budget, Illinois is spending at a clip that could see expenditures outstrip revenue by $5 billion or more.
The only large piece of the fiscal year 2016 budget made law this spring was the budget for primary and secondary education.
The rest of the spending is is attributable to continuing appropriations, such as debt service and pension payments, and to spending demanded by consent decrees and court orders.
“The courts in many ways are running our government because the Legislature has failed to pass a balanced budget,” Nuding told the Senate committee.
Democrats shot back, saying Gov. Rauner has his own role in the standoff.
“This governor has blended something that has put everybody at odds,” said Sen. William Delgado, D-Chicago.
The committee also took testimony from several service providers and advocates for the disadvantaged.
“The hardest part about my job is I have to look into these parents’ eyes daily as I evaluate their children, and I have to reassure them that we’re going to do everything in our power to help their children,” pediatric physical therapist Jamie Passaglia told senators.
“But because of this lack of funding, we’re not going to be able to do that (early intervention work) much longer, and these kids will not get better without these services. I’ve seen it happen.”
She told senators she wasn’t asking for “feel-good funding. What I’m asking is you make an investment in the state of Illinois that will be returned manifold as these children grow up and become taxpaying citizens.”
