The Trib gets the finance end correct
If you’re wondering how, in prior decades, Illinois governors and legislators created the state pension funding crisis that so cripples their successors today, grab a front-row seat. This school funding plan rests on the same philosophy: Today’s needs are so pressing that it’s OK to take money from future generations of schoolkids.
It’s the same old story of selling off assetts and then using the proceeds up in the short term while not dealing with the need for increased taxes or cuts in services. Given the general voting patterns in Illinois increasing taxes is a permissible position under the right circumstances, but Blagojevich long ago punted on that idea. Perhaps most frustrating is that the current tax system is regressive and so keeping it as it is hurts the poor the hardest.
Unless Judy is going to face up to that reality, it’s another four years of one or the other lying about state finances. No one has been honest since Dawn Clark Netsch and unfortunately, a lot of bad campaign choices led that to be a cautionary tale.
Inject some competition in state services, reform Medicaid to stabilize growth, reduce the state’s regulatory burden and elimenate (in revenue neutral fashion) the income tax.
We’ve done the tax, borrow and spend for the last forty years. Why would it work this time?
We know what the right thing to do is, it’s just getting people to do it.