Special budget session fizzles
Legislators will meet in special session again early next week to attempt to hammer out a budget that avoids Gov. Pat Quinn’s warnings of doomsday cuts to social services.
A two-day special session called by Quinn to fill what he says is a $9.2 billion hole adjourned Wednesday without action on an income tax increase favored by the rookie governor. The new state fiscal year will start Wednesday.
“Hopefully we will come to some kind of resolution on the budget,” said state Sen. Pam Althoff, R-McHenry.
A solution could come in the form of a House plan anchored by borrowing $2.2 billion to fund the state’s 2010 pension obligations. State Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said the plan would fund the budget to almost 93 percent of what Quinn wanted.
The pension obligation bonds will come to a vote next week, said state Rep. Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake.
Franks said there weren’t enough votes for a tax increase. Quinn’s plan for a 50 percent increase fell 18 votes short of the 60 needed in the spring session. Seventy-one votes are needed in overtime.
“A tax increase is just not happening,” Franks said.
Legislators arriving Tuesday were greeted by thousands of protesters stoked by weeks of warnings from Quinn that social services would be gutted without new money.
The House hastily approved a 2010 budget funded at 50 percent of the present one before adjourning the spring session May 31.
The 50 percent temporary increase died in the House last month. Members did not vote on a Senate plan to permanently increase the income tax by 67 percent and slap the state sales tax on a wide range of services.
All five of McHenry County’s state legislators vehemently oppose a tax increase and said they would not entertain the idea without significant trimming of government waste and an overhaul of the state budgeting process.
“Jack and I have been fighting this spending for years. I kept saying, ‘You’re breaking us,’” Tryon said. “Now they’re using the social services leverage to get everyone to call and scream and say, ‘Raise taxes.’ But here’s the problem – there’s no guarantee that the money is going to be spent on social services.”
The pressure has irked elected officials in both parties. Comptroller Daniel Hynes criticized Quinn in an open letter Tuesday, stating that Quinn had “... needlessly incited fear and panic among those who rely on state-funded human services.”
Franks likewise called his threats of service cuts “irresponsible,” “disingenuous” and “fearmongering” – words he typically saved for impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“Pat Quinn and I are friends,” Franks said. “He’s a good man, but if he makes mistakes I’m going to call him out on it. That’s what a friend is supposed to do.”
Quinn will have to call a second special session for the General Assembly to convene next week. Such sessions have become common in recent years – Blagojevich called 36 of them during his six years as governor.