Editorial: As a momentous week dawns in Springfield, only blame

Members of the Illinois General Assembly will return to Springfield midweek this week - the Senate on Tuesday, the House on Wednesday - presumably to continue work toward creating a budget that will enable government operations to continue and employees to be paid. And as we anticipate another episode of this tiresome but consequential melodrama, we can't help thinking how much appears to be riding on its semantics rather than its outcomes.

What, for instance, shall we say is the definition of "extreme"? Is it the Republican governor who demands painful cuts in pension and social spending? Or the Democratic legislative leaders who insist on more talk of revenues to solve the state's budget problems?

How do we define "refusal to compromise"? Is it a legislature that passes a budget $3 billion in deficit? Or a governor who vows he won't sign any budget that doesn't include the elements of his personal Turnaround Agenda?

And, what qualifies as "manipulative farce"? Is it House Speaker Mike Madigan's parade of witnesses bemoaning the effects of proposed funding cuts? Or is it Gov. Bruce Rauner's flourish of new ideas for cutting the expenses of government workers' pensions?

It is voters, of course, who will settle the linguistic debate, and knowing that, politicians are doing all they can to influence that outcome. Sadly, it is the other outcome - that involving the actual future of the state that seems to blow in the wind, tattered and ignored.

Oh, to be sure, the substantive issues form the backdrop for the debates rending state government. They are talked about. They are trotted out for examination and study. But ultimately - knowing that any solution is bound to sting large segments of voters - both sides seem bent more on assigning blame for the solution's pains than actually producing the solution itself.

Or, as Hoffman Estates Democratic state Rep. Fred Crespo accurately reflected in our Mike Riopell's Political Recount column on Friday, "There's a lot of posturing going on right now."

One hopes that somewhere in the background real work actually is going on, too - work that has more to do with economics than elections. But we don't have much confidence.

Meanwhile, as courts throw around contradictory interpretations about whether state employees can be paid during a shutdown, lawmakers issue chest-thumping press releases vowing not to accept pay if state employees are denied their paychecks. The irony that lawmakers, the cause of and ongoing contributors to this nightmare, even have the option of being paid under such circumstances seems to escape their notice entirely.

A momentous week awaits in Springfield. We yearn for action. We hear only blame.