By: Ted Dabrowski
Happy days are here again. With the passing of the governorship from Bruce Rauner to J.B. Pritzker, the nightmare in Illinois is finally over. And so is the acrimony and dysfunction. Politics can now return to the era of “compromise” former Gov. Jim Edgar likes to talk about so much. Back to when Illinois government “worked.”
Wishful thinking.
Rauner’s exit might seem like a cause for celebration for many Illinoisans, but they’ll want to reconsider their exuberance. In their distaste for Rauner, they’ve forgotten how dysfunctional the state had become in the years before he took office. Two former governors were jailed, Illinois’ pension crisis became the nation’s worst, and credit downgrades rained on Illinois. The state stopped paying its bills. And worst of all, Illinoisans were leaving in droves.
No amount of post-Rauner euphoria should let Illinoisans ignore that reality. Nor should they ignore the fact that newly-minted Gov. J.B. Pritzker has offered no plans to fix the state’s mushrooming structural problems. Without real fixes, Illinois will continue its rapid downward slide and Illinoisans will continue to flee.
Things were bad
To be sure, the Rauner era was a mess, characterized by blunders, lost opportunities and about-faces. And his leadership style was no match for House Speaker Mike Madigan and his machine. As a result, Rauner’s reform agenda was crushed .
Their biggest fight, the two-year budget impasse, caused everything that was wrong with Illinois to bubble over for everyone to see. The state’s dysfunction reached a new high and its finances fell to a new low.
But as bad as things had become, keep in mind that the state’s finances were collapsing even before Rauner.
Start with unpaid bills. The state’s backlog had already reached a high of $9 billion in 2012, despite the temporary income tax increase then in place.
The state’s pension shortfall had skyrocketed, too. When Gov. Rod Blagojevich took office in 2003, the shortfall was “just” $35 billion. By 2014, it had tripled to $105 billion. The situation was so severe that Attorney General Lisa Madigan even invoked the “police powers” argument – the need for emergency powers – in front of the Supreme Court when defending the state’s pension reform bill SB1.
And state budgets hadn’t been balanced since 2001, even under the state’s own bogus terms.
The big three rating agencies didn’t ignore the pre-Rauner dysfunction. They downgraded Illinois a combined 13 times during Gov. Pat Quinn’s years in office. By the time Rauner was sworn in, the state’s credit rating was already the nation’s worst.
Illinoisans didn’t ignore the mess either. The state’s deterioration, coupled with some of the nation’s highest property taxes, has pushed its residents to leave. The net outmigration of residents hit a then-record of 95,000 in 2014 and caused the state to actually lose population that year. Illinois’ population has shrunk every year since.
The next four years
In the absence of reforms, none of those long-term trends will change under Pritzker and Madigan.
And while it’s too early to know exactly what policies Pritzker will pursue, his first major act as governor offers a glimpse. He signed salary increases for AFSCME – reportedly worth hundreds of millions – ignoring the fact that Illinois state workers already get the nation’s second-highest pay, Cadillac health care and free retiree health insurance.
On the other hand, Pritzker has revealed no plans to the tackle the state’s twin retirement debt crises – state pensions ($234 billion shortfall) and retiree health benefits ($73 billion shortfall). In a recent NPR report that laid out Pritzker’s entire policy agenda, pensions were addressed only once. His plan for them? Borrow more money.
Which brings us back to Rauner’s exit.
With him and his roadblocks out of the way, Springfield politicians can now return to the same schemes that got Illinois into this mess in the first place – championed under Madigan by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Like “re-amortization” plans that shove Illinois debts onto future generations. Or pension obligation bonds promoted under the “stabilization” banner. And higher taxes, of course. Progressive and sin taxes are all in play.
None of those will fix Illinois’ problems. They’ll all just kick the can down the road, at best.
Exuberant Illinoisans can celebrate Rauner’s exit if they want, but they should still demand from Pritzker the spending and structural reforms Illinois so desperately needs – including a constitutional amendment for pensions.
The state is still on the same ugly path it’s been on for decades. Without reforms, expect Illinois’ financial free fall to continue and more of its sober-minded residents to flee.
Read more from Wirepoints about Illinois’ crises in the pre- and post-Rauner era:
- Ten trends dragging Illinois toward insolvency and what to do about it
- Moody’s vs. Illinois politicians: $100 billion difference in pension debts
- Illinois’ other debt disaster: $73 billion in unfunded retiree health insurance benefits
- Attorney General Filings Summarized: Illinois is Screwed (and Nuts)
- New Census Data: Record Illinois Population Loss, 5th Straight Annual Loss
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about the free speech controversy brewing in Wilmette due to the city’s refusal to fly a religious freedom flag, the city’s left-wing excesses and the growing culture war, the latest money spent on the illegal immigrant crisis, and more.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/14/2024.
Where’s my free stuff?
Having one set of Dems propose a 50% tax increase, then another set of Dems propose a 100% tax increase, then picking a point in between is NOT compromise. This is the spin JB Crew is going to attempt: false-flag gives and large takes. There will be no true middle. The perfect example of attempted compromise during the Rauner years was the Right-to-Work zone. Every other state is either completely RTW or not. The “compromise” was a tiny RTW zone, perhaps time-boxed with a set of measurable goals. The world wasn’t going to come to an end. Laborers weren’t going… Read more »
Rauner was a put up fake reformer who never had a chance of out maneuvering Madigan; that was proven by Rauner’s two failed ballot initiatives prior to becoming Governor. Rauner was beaten (if he was ever in this to reform) well before he assumed office. Anyone with even half a brain knew that as Rauner’s incompetence was on full display before he won office. Prtizker is simply here to jack up the salaries and this the pension benefits of another wave of politicians and union members. The strategy is obvious they are still convinced trump will be taken out and… Read more »
Too little too late. Everybody (including wirepoints) blamed Rauner. The people of IL voted for Pritzker. They get what they deserve.
The public employee unions got their man, so all we can do now is watch this disaster movie unfold. At what point does the interest on the debt become so onerous that the state just ceases to function with any normalcy? We’re accumulating billions in debt a year. I have to imagine that we are not too far from it becoming a catastrophic situation, especially as the interest rate rises.
It’s already catastrophic. Where have you been?
Madigan came into office in 1983. At that time, Illinois had a AAA credit rating. Today, Madigan is still in office. Illinois’ credit rating is just above junk. Coincidence? I think not.