Speaker Madigan vaguely discusses budget
ELMHURST – Illinois is in for a long haul when it comes to pulling itself out of its financial mess, but lawmakers made a good start by passing a budget for this fiscal year that was $2 billion below the amount requested by Gov. Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan said Tuesday during a speech a week before the Legislature returns to Springfield for its spring session.
Madigan is arguably the most powerful man in Springfield, with the ability to make or break deals. But anyone hoping to find out specifically where he stands on some of the state’s most urgent issues wouldn’t have learned it from his address at Elmhurst College’s Annual Government Forum.
Changing future pension benefits for current state employees would make an interesting national debate and ultimately could be decided by the courts, he told a packed room. Illinois’ underfunded pension liability now exceeds $85 billion and lawmakers already have changed benefits for future employees to help reduce the costs.
But Madigan didn’t mention that he had introduced legislation along with House Minority Leader Tom Cross to create a three-tiered pension system for current employees, and wouldn’t address reporters’ questions afterward whether there are enough Republican and Democratic votes to bring the bill to the House floor.
School districts don’t pay into teachers’ pension systems like other employers do, leaving that obligation to the state – accounting for half of the $4 billion the state pays into five pension systems annually, he said. He said it would be reasonable to ask them to pay, but would not say whether anyone planned to introduce legislation to force them to do so.
He noted that he helped establish a spending cap for state government and pass a budget that was $2 billion below the amount requested by Quinn and said lawmakers should be prepared to do it again, saying “budget makers in Springfield must learn to live within their means.”
But he gave no examples of where the state could trim expenses and didn’t address whether the state should borrow money to pay a backlog of millions of dollars in bills.
“There’s a limit to how far you can raise taxes; there’s a limit as to how much you want to cut,” Madigan said, noting the state’s support of education and social services. “It’s easy to say cut, but when you take out the knife ... not so easy to do.”
Madigan has a reputation for not revealing much and that comes as no surprise to longtime political watchers.
“You don’t play in the big leagues as long as he has by giving anything away,” said Paul Green, a political scientist at Roosevelt University. “He has made a career out of being very hard to read. If there was a world series of poker for politicians he would be the overwhelming favorite.”
