Opinion: Illinois Never Has Been In Such Bad Shape

Opinion

What's gone on with Illinois state government in Springfield for the last year certainly qualifies as a reboot, but not the kind we envisioned when this website debuted in November 2012.

Never in our institutional memory, which is longer than we'd like to admit, has Illinois government been in a greater state of financial and functional disarray than it is today.

On the financial side, we have a state blindly spending at a rate that far outpaces what it's taking in. Our leaders have known for eight months now that there's no getting out of a $111 billion long-term pension obligation, yet they've done nothing to address it. The 25 percent income tax rate reduction that arrived a year ago was celebrated in some corners, but is sure to be wiped away by the mammoth budget deficit and unpaid bills now accruing.

Functionally, where do we begin? Just this week we've learned that:

• The state, because it has no budget, is on the verge of non-compliance with court-ordered standards for care of the developmentally disabled

The harm being inflicted by the budget standoff is too vast to itemize. (We've created a map to record other examples as we find them, though it's far from inclusive.)

Gov. Bruce Rauner has said all this is short-term pain that will lead to long-term gain in the form of business and legal reforms he believes are necessary to revitalize Illinois' job market. House Speaker Michael Madigan says those reforms will diminish the standard of living of the middle class and aren't related to the budget.

At one time, I believed both sides had valid points. But more than six months into this deadlock, the pain no longer is short-term...

You can read the rest of Dietrich's opinion piece here.

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