No apparent resolution to end impasse

While the rest of the world might be torturing itself with resolutions for the new year and efforts to keep them, not even such a temporary effort is likely to disrupt the dysfunction in Springfield.

State House Republican leader Tom Cross expressed little hope earlier this week that the impasse between the General Assembly and Gov. Rod Blagojevich that cost taxpayers more than a million dollars in overtime expenses might be resolved in the brighter early days of 2008.

"It's deteriorated into a personality clash unlike one I've ever seen before," said Cross, of Oswego. "I'm not sure it gets any better, and that's the sad part. I think the animosity that exists between people is pretty real, pretty deep, and I don't see a lot of big things happening around here."

Blagojevich's office downplayed the rifts, which exist between Democrats, between Democrats and Republicans, and between the legislature and the governor.

"Gov. Blagojevich is focused on doing things for people, including finding a long-term solution for mass transit that doesn't require working people to pay higher fares, pass a capital plan to build roads, schools and bridges, expand access to health care, and fund education," said spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch. "It's not about personalities. It's about priorities."

No, it's about the governor's willful insistence that his priorities are everyone else's. If there was actual agreement on the priorities, none of this would be happening.

Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and the governor's office, and still there are no solutions to transportation and capital project funding priorities that are growing more critical every day.

In fact, Cross and his Republican Party colleagues are closer to being on the same page with Democratic members of the legislature than those Democrats are with their own governor.

For his part, Blagojevich's attitude remains "my way or the highway."

While the legislature is focused on roads, bridges, highways, mass transit and school buildings, Blagojevich continues to insist on an expansion of taxpayer-subsidized health-care services even though the state can't pay its health care or pension commitments now.

Under such financial constraints and the reality of politicians speaking in what appear to be foreign tongues to each other, Cross would appear to be right. Nothing much is likely to happen without a change in the political climate, and that could mean higher fares and fewer routes for the metro area's mass transit systems.

Still, we hope the governor and legislative leaders can get beyond the personal animosity and give it at least one more go in at least a nod to a new year.

But they also should not mortgage the state's financial future further just because the sitting governor doesn't deem financial responsibility part of his job.