 But what that "same" is depends on which political party is talking.
Republican gubernatorial candidate state Sen. Bill Brady of
Bloomington has yet to concede the race to Gov. Pat Quinn, whom he
trails by about 19,500 votes. But state Sen. Dale Righter,
R-Mattoon, said he is already expecting a repeat of the past few
years of Democratic control.
"It's going to be about more spending. It's going to be about
more borrowing. It's going to be about more taxing, which are the
things that I think that voters, particularly in my area of the
state, resoundingly rejected at the polls just a couple days ago,"
Righter said.
Illinois currently faces a budget deficit of $13 billion, which
Comptroller Dan Hynes has recently said could rise to $15 billion
next year.
Quinn last year proposed and campaigned on a platform of
increasing the state income tax by 1 percentage point -- or 33
percent -- to raise money for an education budget that for the past
two years has relied on federal stimulus funding set to expire in
June.
Although Illinois largely missed the Republican "wave" that swept
the nation on Election Day, a Quad-Cities lawmaker said public
officials need to listen to what Illinois voters said on Tuesday.
"I think we need to decipher what the voters have told us, take
our cues from what they've told us and then move forward," said Mike
Jacobs, D-East Moline.
Moving forward appeared to be the intention behind the state
Senate's return to the Capitol on Thursday to consider a $4.1
billion pension borrowing plan passed by the House in May. The
Senate skipped town in May without considering the bond measure
needed to make this year's payment to the state's five public
employee pension systems.
The initiative on Thursday met the same fate, as it was pulled
from consideration in a key Senate committee because it lacked
support.
Illinois also has a backlog of nearly $6 billion in unpaid bills
to schools and vendors that do business with the state. Jacobs said
the state has to clear its name of that debt.
"I think at the end of the day you've got to pay your bills,"
Jacobs. "So that gives you a couple of options: You either borrow
it, you raise a tax to get it, or you cut something to get it."
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Thursday's inaction on the pension bond plan appears to kick
borrowing off the list.
State Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, said cuts most likely are on the
horizon.
"Primarily we're going to have to cut as much waste as we can,
and we're going to have to cut programs that are not waste but that
are good programs but that we can't afford anymore," Haine said. "We
just can't afford some of the good things that we do."
Public opinion polls have shown voters support cuts, but when
given specific programs to cut, they balk. Same goes for an income
tax increase.
"The polls indicate the people at this time do not believe a tax
increase is justified," said Haine. "So we have to have a dialogue
and have them tell us what their priorities are and how we get to a
state of solvency. We are in a state where we are critically in
danger of being insolvent."
According to Righter, it's simply a matter of priorities, which
he believes need to change .
"We need to set come priorities, we need to cut some spending, we
need to change some of our economic policies -- like workers'
compensation and unemployment insurance that would really make a
difference in terms of creating jobs in this state," he said.
The full legislature meets on Nov. 16 for the fall veto session.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By MARY MASSINGALE]
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