Governor Pat Quinn says he'll begin using the authority state lawmakers bestowed upon him this past week to begin making harsh cuts to balance the state's $10 billion-in-the-red budget. House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton chose rather than to lead their Democratic majority caucuses in proposing a shrunken budget that would match the state's smaller recession revenue, they'd rather let the governor take the heat and let him make the tough cuts.
So Quinn, who still wants a state income tax increase that neither Madigan nor Cullerton can deliver, told Chicago Public Radio he's got the budget axe in hand and he's going start chopping where it hurts the most -- at state lawmakers' salaries.
Quinn says he's going to spare the state's health care, education and public safety budgets. That's a change of heart from earlier in the year, when Quinn threatened to make drastic cuts in health care, education and public safety. Of course, after SEIU and AFSCME's huge pro-tax hike march on Springfield, those budget items became untouchable. That's because they're where the most potential votes are affected and where most of Quinn's biggest supporters -- the service employees' and teachers' unions -- work.
Perhaps a healthy 10 percent salary cut would help state lawmakers feel the pain of the many of us who've been hit with salary cuts this year just to keep struggling-in-recession businesses afloat. And while he's at it, how about adding several of those six-figure salaried, cushioned state bureaucrats to the chopping block?
The taxpayers demand a leaner and meaner state budget like the ones we're living with. The state constitution requires a balanced budget. This one is swimming in $10 billion of red ink.
Let the correction begin where it went off course -- with the same state lawmakers that got us in this mess in the first place.
