Editorial: Don't lose sight of goals in fight over details of Rauner budget

It will come as a surprise to no one when the budget Gov. Bruce Rauner delivered to the Illinois General Assembly on Wednesday bears almost no similarity to whatever document legislators adopt - if indeed they do adopt one - this May. But that shouldn't distract from the point that the budget is built on some commendable themes.

Mandated by the state constitution, the governor's annual budget is always a draft document, a potential starting point for lawmakers to consider as they take up the business of actually funding government. That has been true for governors of both parties since long before Rauner appeared on the scene. Furthermore, we also unfortunately cannot escape the political reality that a Democratic General Assembly is not going to hand a Republican governor an unchallenged budget victory in an election year - a notion immediately underscored by the contentious and purposely oblivious official Democratic response from state Rep. Greg Harris, of Chicago.

Then, there are other practical considerations as well. It is optimistic to say the least that the state will conquer its $129 billion pension crisis so effectively in one year that it could enact a $1 billion income tax cut in 2019. They are similarly slim hopes that suggest the state will manage to persuade employee bargaining groups to accept modifications in health premiums that will produce as much as $560 million in savings to the state.

It is notions like these, born of political rhetoric and void of practical application, that led us earlier this week to bemoan Illinois' long tradition of declaring as balanced budgets that have only a tenuous connection to fiscal reality. So, in practical terms, Gov. Rauner's 2018 budget address had little value as a road map for state spending.

But it did offer a destination that leaders of both parties should not overlook.

"Our mission is straightforward: Enact reforms, be accountable, deliver on our promises," the governor declared of his budget. Whether it actually accomplishes that goal is open to dispute, but the sentiment is certainly appealing.

As is this later line: "We simply have to slow the growth of our spending."

Yes. Yes. Yes. We plead with lawmakers, Democrat and Republican, to heed these sentiments.

But none of us should be so naive as to assume, for example, that citizens will magically become less burdened if - as the governor proposed - their local schools are encumbered with the weight of massive pension debt now managed by the state. Sure, we want local school boards and their employees to have skin in the game of pension obligations, but who would blithely accept that local taxpayers will enjoy massive savings through a simple shift of the burden from the state to local schools? It is likewise disingenuous to assert, as the governor does, that you are giving the schools new money via a new funding formula while simultaneously expecting them to use that money to pay the pension burden you are heaping on them.

In short, the governor's budget message provided plenty of fodder for political argument and little for practical money management. But it did at least emphasize key realities that ought not become lost in the wrangling over details.

Indeed they ought to be the starting point for all our budgeting efforts: honesty, accountability, spending control, and - in education, workers' compensation, employee health care and pensions - reform. We eagerly wait to see what lawmakers will come up with that is true to these objectives.