In his ongoing effort to try to convince Illinois residents that the state's gaping budget deficit can be closed without raising taxes, State Rep. and GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady appeared on Fox Chicago Sunday yesterday, where he downplayed the size of the deficit.  As you can see, co-host Jack Conaty wasn't buying it (watch the full video here):

Later in the segment, when pressed by the hosts to provide more specifics on how he would balance the budget, Brady proposed reforming Medicaid and state employee health benefits and perhaps instituting four to 14-percent across-the-board cuts. Brady also went on to repeat the claim that the state is spending "over $4,000 per man, woman, and child just within the state budget" -- a calculation he came to after dividing the $53 billion budget total by the number of taxpayers. There's just one problem with Brady's math: As Capitol Fax (subscription required) noted a week ago, over half of that figure is made up of federal funds.

In these types of media appearances, Brady is very careful to avoid talking about the human cost of the cuts he's proposing, instead focusing his message on better "management" and "streamlining" of state government.  When you consider that the bulk of those cuts would affect Illinois' public education and health care systems, it's easy to see why.

In the clip above, Brady says that Illinois has a choice: "We can lead the nation out of this economic disaster or we can continue to fall behind."  But guess what?  One of the reasons we've fallen behind is that our three percent flat income tax rate is one of the lowest and most regressive in the country.  It's hard to see how that system is going to "lead" us anywhere other than deeper in the ditch.