Illinois missed its deadline yesterday to pass a balanced budget. The state is somewhere between $7-9 billion in debt, which is a 1/3 of its annual spending, and there is utterly no plan on the table to write a balanced budget. Well, there is one plan — Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to raise the income tax 50 percent but that remains a non-starter in the Illinois General Assembly.

Rick Pearson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune report that Quinn and lawmakers have agreed to return to Springfield (the Illinois state capitol) on July 14th, the day of French emancipation. In the meantime, state schools, health care providers, etc. etc. have utterly no idea how much state services will be cut. In an economic crisis, the services government provides are in limbo.-MB

Comment RSS - You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.