Progress Illinois

As we noted last night, the spending plan passed by the General Assembly avoids the obvious need for a higher income tax rate by 1) borrowing $3.5 billion against the pension system, 2) remaining a deadbeat on another $3 billion in bills to state vendors, and 3) cutting several billion dollars more out of the budget  -- much of that amount from human service providers.  A real profile in courage.

So what are some of the potential 2010 gubernatorial candidates saying they would have done differently?

First, the Daily Herald quotes Democratic State Rep. Jack Franks, who is considering a primary challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn:

"This is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. We cannot continue to put off the cuts that we need to do," Franks said. "We're going to be in worse shape than before we got here."

While Franks is right that the state "is going to be in worse shape" come next year, does he not realize that the plan passed last night includes huge spending reductions?  From the AP:

The budget includes about $2.1 billion in spending cuts, with the possibility of an additional $1.1 billion in cuts later in the year. Quinn has proposed saving that money by laying off 2,600 state employees, requiring the remaining workers to take unpaid furlough days, downsizing state prisons and more.

These reductions are going to have a devastating effect on the social service providers (beyond those already affected by the fiscal uncertainty).  I'd like to hear Franks detail the additional "cuts that we need to do." Somehow I doubt they add up to $6 billion.

Moving on, we've got GOP Sen. Kirk Dillard's response, as reported in Mark Brown's Sun-Times column:

"Another day older and deeper in debt, as the song goes," Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale, an announced Republican candidate for governor, told me Wednesday before the vote, arguing that the state needs to start by reducing its Medicaid costs.

The Republicans' go-to plan for reducing Medicaid costs is more managed care.  But as Rich Miller pointed out last month, the Taxpayer Action Board (TAB) report (PDF) calculated the savings associated with such a plan at under $100 million:

The rest of the savings come from things like Medicaid managed care, which supposedly would save $95 million in the first year — a far cry from the $3 billion in savings that the Senate Republicans have been claiming and the Chicago Tribune has been touting.

As the Woodstock Institute's Dory Rand noted in her minority opinion to the TAB report, the most effective way to reduce the state's Medicaid burden is to get behind reforms at the federal level.  There really is only so much state lawmakers can do to cut costs in this area.