Here is the Tribune's Rick Pearson today on the gubernatorial candidates' proposed budget fixes:

Among all the issues facing Illinois' next governor, there is no greater divergence among the Democratic and Republican candidates in the Feb. 2 primary than on whether the state income tax should be raised.

Democratic contenders Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes are for it. The seven Republicans are against it.

Still, the state faces a deficit north of $10 billion. Pressed on how to address what many at the Capitol argue is Illinois' biggest problem, Republicans are expressing some creative, if not controversial, new ways to find money.

Got that? Democrats want to raise your taxes.  But the Republicans?  They're "creative"!

Let's contrast Pearson's approach with that taken by the AP's Christopher Wills last week:

As Illinois faces the biggest budget disaster in its history, the seven men battling for the GOP nomination are making big promises but offering voters few details about what they would actually do if elected.

They fiercely reject the idea of tax increases and say cost-cutting is the key to balancing the budget. But when asked to spell out which government services they're willing to cut, most of them retreat - as [Jim] Ryan did in the debate - to generalities about making Medicaid more efficient or scouring the budget for waste.

They rarely dwell on the scope of the state's problem: a deficit of about $11 billion.

Pearson's latest article makes the cut-oriented GOP proposals sound relatively harmless.  Wills, by contrast, does what the Tribune and other local outlets all too often refrained from doing: He explores the potential effects of the GOP plan:

Even if the deficit is only half that size by the time the next governor takes office, or if officials disguise half of it by borrowing money and paying bills late, filling the hole would still require cutting $1 in every $5 the state now spends.

And that would require slashing some services and eliminating others completely.

"They've got themselves in a position, electionwise, where they can't campaign on the truth," said Steve Schnorf, who was budget director under Republican Govs. Jim Edgar and George Ryan .

Even some conservatives who oppose a tax increase scold the candidates for glossing over the vast changes that would be required.

Steve Rauschenberger, a former state senator and a budget expert, said it would require, among other things, cutting school spending and switching to a voucher system, reducing the number of prison inmates by one-quarter, trimming higher education and overhauling Medicaid from top to bottom.

This budget crisis is complicated stuff.  And the GOP candidates -- in their effort to avoid backing an income tax increase -- are already trying to dumb down and gloss over the scope of the challenges.  But if this is going to be an honest debate, we need the local media to take a cue from Wills and provide the relevant context.