Progress Illinois

We've got more vague budget proclamations from State Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine).  These comments come from his appearance on WSIU's Illinois Lawmakers last night:

MURPHY: You absolutely don't have to raise taxes to balance this budget.  You can, through cuts -- if you want to fully fund the pension, you're probably going to have to do some short-term borrowing, which I think is preferable to skipping the pension payments.  But you can absolutely make up the equivalent of what Gov. Quinn wants to make up in taxes through budget cuts.  I've seen it.  You can do it. [...]

Gov. Quinn's budget ends up balanced.  He has about $3.8 billion in tax hikes in it.  You can cut $3.8 billion out of this budget, I promise you. It's not easy.  It's not all fat. It's not all waste.  But you can do it.  And it's preferable to raising taxes and putting more people out of work.

When pressed further, the only specific deficit reduction proposal Murphy could cite was to move more Medicaid enrollees into managed care.  Of course, he didn't assign a specific cost savings to that idea.  Neither did the proponents who appeared before the Senate Deficit Reduction Committee back in March. 

So that's really helpful.

UPDATE: Murphy has a budget-related press conference scheduled tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.  Maybe he'll let us all "see" his plan to cut $3.8 billion from the budget.