Stop the games on needed projects

Just when we thought the Illinois legislature had managed to end its session without the sky falling, along comes Chicken Little.

Playing that role is Gov. Pat Quinn, who on Monday stood at a roadwork site and dramatically threatened a shutdown of all state-funded construction and the loss of 52,000 related jobs.

If they want to avoid that, the governor said, all lawmakers have to do is hustle back to Springfield and sign an appropriations bill to keep the bulldozers and bricklayers going past the June 30 end of the budget year.

Hmmm, you say (being from Illinois, after all). There must be more to it than that.

And of course, there is.

What Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton seem to want out of a special session is another swipe at a $33.2 billion state budget that is way too tight for their tastes. The House approved the budget before adjourning last week, but in an eleventh-hour maneuver, Senate Democrats led by Cullerton tacked $430 million for education and social services onto the capital spending bill.

The clock chimed midnight May 31 to signal the end of the legislative session, and lawmakers left town without agreeing on that bill.

“It’s a very serious job crisis,” Quinn said Monday, contending roadwork, construction at state universities and every other building project will have to shut down in the coming weeks if no capital bill is passed.

With the probable exception of those 52,000 people who’ve been led to believe their jobs are on the line, not everyone sees this as quite the emergency that Quinn portrays it to be.

Fellow Democrat and House Speaker Michael Madigan said legislators already gave Quinn the OK in another bill to keep up the capital spending until the end of 2011. Republicans say dropping the $430 million and calling in just the Senate to vote on it would speedily grease the spending bill into Quinn’s hands.

We’re irked at Quinn seemingly going out of his way to paint Illinois as being in crisis if, for once, we might not be. Our state’s reputation and credibility with businesses have suffered enough.

We’re angry that either alternative laid out by Quinn is going to cost us — either for the salaries and other expenses of a legislative special session or, heaven forbid, for the costs related to shutting down work zones and cutting jobs.

The impasse itself is not entirely Quinn’s doing. He shares the blame with the General Assembly for failing to finish the job.

Republican Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, who actually pays the state’s bills and seldom minces words, says it well, admonishing lawmakers and Quinn: “Do not play games.”

Citizens of Illinois, she said, “deserve better than to be subjected to a high-priced game of legislative chicken.”

We couldn’t agree more.