Reboot Illinois' Madeleine Doubek has little use for House Speaker Michael Madigan's oft-repeated accusation that Gov. Bruce Rauner is being unreasonable and "extreme" by trying to use "non-budget issues" as bargaining chips in deadlocked budget talks:
House Speaker Michael Madigan, the wily one, says it's unfortunate and distracting because Gov. Bruce Rauner keeps bringing up "non-budget" issues.
The all-powerful, Oz-like Speaker is on a roll. He stands behind the podium and before the blue velvet curtain in Springfield with a regularity not seen in a decade or so. Mr. Speaker insists in his looong-and-draaaawn out Southwest Side calm that he is professional and cooperative and moderate, but the governor is extreme. The governor wants to send hard-working people and the elderly to the poor house, and continues to bring up "non-budget" items when the state is in crisis and desperately needs a budget.
Because the Speaker is the Speaker for life -having been in power longer than many reporters in the Capitol have been alive -- and because he speaks so rarely and so carefully, he doesn't have to spend many pennies yet to get his message across, unlike his current nemesis, Rauner.
Rauner is spending what are a just few pennies to him so far on an ad that tamely asserts that Madigan and his minions refuse to change. All the majority Democrats want to do, the ad says, is spend and raise taxes again.
And so it goes. But what of this notion from Mr. Speaker that Rauner keeps bringing up "non-budget" issues?
It's laughable.
Read the rest of Doubek's thoughts at Reboot Illinois.
As Illinoisans face the challenge of an uncertain budget, many also are facing the challenge of rising property tax prices. Adam Andrzejewski, chairman of For the Good of Illinois, looked at where Illinois ranks on property taxes nationally and how some people are moving to "shouses" (shed/houses) to avoid property taxes. Read his whole take on the situation at Reboot Illinois.
