Quinn courts suburbs
By DAVID FITZGERALD - dfitzgerald@nwherald.com and DEANNA BELLANDI - The Associated Press
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| Gov. Pat Quinn talks to the news media Monday after meeting with state lawmakers in an attempt to end an impasse on his proposed state budget in Chicago. The state is operating without a budget while officials continue to try to plug an $11.6 billion hole. (M. Spencer Green (STF)) |
CHICAGO – Gov. Pat Quinn told a gathering of suburban legislators Monday that he planned to announce today about $1 billion in additional cuts to the state budget.
State agencies, offices and even the General Assembly would be hit by the cuts he plans to detail today.
But without hearing any specific figures or solutions to the state’s financial dire straits, McHenry County’s delegation left the meeting all wanting the same thing – a totally new budget from Quinn with a lot more cuts.
Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said he would like to see an entirely new proposal for a two-year budget that was stripped of all pork projects. Franks criticized Quinn’s proposed tax hike – a 50 percent increase in the state income tax from 3 to 4.5 percent – as well as his cuts targeting social service groups.
“I don’t think he has done a good job managing this issue,” Franks said.
“He needs to get real and make more cuts,” Franks said.
The state is operating without a budget while officials continue to try to plug a hole that ranges between $9.2 billion and $11.6 billion, depending on who is counting.
And figuring that should be the first step, said Rep. Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake.
“We’re not even on agreement on what the deficit really is,” Tryon said. “The governor needs to come back with a whole new budget. That is the only hope we have.”
The new fiscal year started July 1, but the state is without a spending plan because Quinn vetoed a piecemeal budget lawmakers slapped together before they adjourned their spring session.
Monday’s meeting was the latest in a series of meetings Quinn is having with groups of lawmakers to try to break an impasse over the state budget.
Quinn has stepped up the attention he’s paying to rank-and-file members after making little progress brokering a budget deal with the four legislative leaders.
Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, said the meeting between Quinn and the more than three dozen suburban lawmakers was virtually identical to the meeting she attended last week with a contingent of female lawmakers. And her opinion of the budget since then, she said, has remained equally unchanged.
“The budget is unacceptable as presented,” Althoff said. “We need to learn what specific additional cuts he is proposing and then sit down and brainstorm.”
Althoff said she was encouraged that Quinn was reaching out to lawmakers, but would rather be working in Springfield to pass a budget instead of attending another special meeting with the governor in Chicago.
House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, both Democrats from Chicago, plan to call legislators back into special session July 14.
