Legislative ‘Job 1:’ No excuse for not fixing budget

The lead to our story Sunday about legislators’ interests this session included an important phrase. There are, Mike Riopell and Jeff Engelhardt said in their front-page story, “other priorities.” And there are.

But, as the story also stated, there is also one overriding topic from which the state cannot divert its attention — fixing the budget. Many lawmakers recognized this and emphasized to Riopell and Engelhardt that although they will be promoting things like mandatory bicycle helmets, food stamp rules, local control, education reform and many more such issues important to them and their constituents, their focus over the next five months will be on getting Illinois’ fiscal house in order.

This is indeed Job 1. It’s been a feature of Job 1 for at least the last three years, solidly intertwined with issues of corruption, ethics and reform that are part and parcel with the process of repairing both the reputation and the operation of Illinois state government.

It’s a telling sign of the depths of our problems that even though the subject of Sunday’s story was “other priorities,” the concern of most area lawmakers had something to do with the budget. Pension reform. Workers’ compensation. Spending controls. The state’s business climate. These and others like them are the phrases that must dominate conversations in Springfield between now and May 31 — with the emphasis on now.

Past General Assemblies have drifted into a troubling pattern related to the budget. Although taxes and expenditures have remained a topic of general interest throughout the legislative session, “other priorities” have been allowed to rise to the surface while legislative leaders huddled and rank-and-file lawmakers waited to be told what their limited options would be on state spending plans.

That can’t happen this year. It shouldn’t happen any year, but this crucial year above all, the constant and primary theme running through everything that happens in Springfield has to be righting the state’s financial ship and keeping it righted. Other topics may have a place, and somewhere within the Byzantine workings of Illinois legislative movement, they may be able to find a fair airing. But they are nothing if by the end of May, the state does not have a meaningful, manageable, reliable process in place for getting out of debt and controlling future expenses.

We disdain the 67 percent income tax increase that Gov. Pat Quinn and other Democrats have already pushed through, and we’re bitterly skeptical about the $9 billion in borrowing they want to follow it up with. But it’s at least comforting to see that the borrowing plan, tax increase, workers’ compensation and pensions are the subjects among the first bills filed this session. Hopefully, that’s an indication lawmakers will deal with them — really deal with them — throughout the next five months. Lawmakers are right to be thinking about issues that affect the lives of people in their communities, but, Democrat or Republican, they need to be constantly pounding on the office doors of legislative leaders, offering ideas and demanding answers about how future spending will be cut and controlled.

It has been easy enough for them in past years to wail about a process that finds them voting at midnight May 31 on hundreds of pages of spending and revenue rules they’ve seen only hours before and been barely briefed on. This year, it is no excuse to dump blame for this misguided approach on the shoulders of legislative leaders.

The session is just beginning. The time for work is now. The key participants are everyone.

And aside from financial stability, all priorities can be defined as only “other.”