Syverson says: Senate isn’t coming back; budget’s still unbalanced
Add comment July 10th, 2008
The Illinois House may be coming back to work next week to consider overriding Gov. Blagojevich’s $1.4 billion in “cuts” to the state budget, but whatever they do, their action will be futile, says Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford.
Senate President Emil Jones “Made it clear, the Senate is not coming back until after the election,” Syverson said Thursday afternoon. So, any House action can’t be acted on by the Senate.
So, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s $1.4 million in “cuts” stands for now.
But are they really cuts, and is the $59 billion budget really balanced?
Syverson says no.
Some $580 million worth of the “cuts” aren’t really cuts at all, just further delays in payments to Medicaid providers, he says.
“To call that cuts, when it’s just delaying payments to doctors and hospitals, is irresponsible. What he’s doing is extending the payment cycle another 60 days, meaning it will take 7 to 8 months for providers to get paid.”" All the governor is doing is creating a bigger problem in the 2010 fiscal year, Syverson warned.
Also, some 70 percent of the “cuts” are actually reductions in increases, he said.
Some of the cuts made to constitutional office budgets were in pension line items, Syverson said.
“You can’t cut payments to a pension fund, all you can do is defer them. So if he cuts money out of the secretary of state’s pension contribution, that problem doesn’t go away, it just delays the payment.”
The real problem, Syverson said, is that “in the last 6 years the governor has increased spending by $7 billion. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
“They left in a lot of the governor’s programs, union pay increases for state employees, but they cut the cost of living increase to nonprofit and private sector human service providers. The private sector agencies got hurt; obviously government employee run programs didn’t feel it as much, Syverson says.
Even with the gov’s “cuts,” the budget is still unbalanced, Syverson notes.
“The hole is just as big and getting bigger. People ought to plan on a tax increase coming in November to fill this hole,” the Rockford Republican warns.
