Tough as it is, show us you'll make cuts first
Our anxiety eased just a bit Wednesday when Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn said talk of a huge state tax increase was "premature."
We know we're facing a gargantuan financial crisis in Illinois: a more than $9 billion deficit.
The alarming news has been that some top elected officials seemed first to conclude that the default answer to that is to sock it to all of us.
Look, we do appreciate the problem is extremely challenging. The portion of the general revenue fund that can be used to pay for bills is about $27 billion. Nearly $19 billion of that is needed for school funding and Medicaid. Another $3.5 billion is used to cover state worker salaries, so there's only about $4.5 billion for every other need.
Already, new Democratic state Senate President John Cullerton has been pushing an income tax increase, a 16-cent-a-gallon gas tax hike and a tax on Internet sales.
Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont said some of her members might vote for a smaller gas tax. House GOP Leader Tom Cross of Oswego said his group is more open to added gambling to boost revenue.
Cullerton told us a range of tax increases is inevitable unless we want more pothole-riddled roads, higher class sizes and reduced health care for seniors, the disabled and the poor. Of course, no one wants any of those things.
But very many of us already have had to make far too many painful cuts in our personal budgets, and we've suffered through them in our workplaces too. Why does it seem like that's never an option in government?
It was once before and it must be again before there is any more serious talk of taxing. We remember a similar recessionary crisis when former Gov. Jim Edgar took office in 1991. On his first day on the job, Republican Edgar cut the governor's office budget by $1 million and did not fill 40 jobs on his staff. Ultimately, for the first time in anyone's memory, thousands more state jobs and budgets were cut.
He believes that kind of approach must happen again. "You've got to say 'no' to everybody. Every area should get cut," not across the board, but in some form, he said Thursday.
Edgar noted the situation is worse today. Illinois does already have fewer state workers per capita than any other state. And even if taxes are raised, Illinois' debt is so severe that education and other budgets probably cannot be increased, he said, though some help will come from the federal stimulus. He suggested Quinn and others should go talk to rank-and-file state workers and ask, "Where can we cut 10 percent and do the least harm?" Edgar's staff did that, and it helped everyone recognize they had to help.
"If for no other reason, you do that for perception purposes," Edgar said.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for furlough days for state workers.
Start with furlough days. Cut or trim former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's expansion of health-care coverage for families with six-figure incomes. End free mass transit for wealthy senior citizens. Look at raising income qualifiers that give some senior citizens "circuit breaker" tax cuts.
Look at eliminating or combining some state agencies, like the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which was drastically downsized in a different form once before.
Many suburbs have trimmed fests. Quinn should scale back or close the state fair until we pay our debts. Edgar did that too.
Some of the cuts could create more challenges for our schools and municipalities. Still, absolutely every trimming option must be considered.
We're hopeful Quinn understands that, as well as this other observation from Edgar's experience: "If, at first, you say you're going to have a tax increase," he said, "then you'll never get the cuts."
Cut first. It will hurt, but it must be done.