Progress Illinois

If he's to survive the rough-and-tumble Republican gubernatorial primary, State Sen. Kirk Dillard is going to have to appease his party's conservative base. That includes providing justification for his appearance in the first biographical television ad produced by then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama. "Sen. Obama worked on some of the deepest issues we had, and he was successful in a bipartisan way,” the Hinsdale lawmaker said in the ad. “His negotiation skills and an ability to understand both sides would serve the country very well.”

At a "tea party forum" in Homer Glen Wednesday night, one attendee wanted to know if Dillard still believed that his former colleague was "serving the country well." Dillard quickly said no before launching into a revisionist attack on the president, claiming that he doesn't like the "socialistic policies" that are being implemented in Washington and that he "warned people back then that [Obama] was a socialist." Watch it:

DILLARD: I disagree with Barack Obama on about 95 percent of what he stands for or is. One of the reasons I'm here tonight is I don't like those socialistic policies and I warned people back then that he was a socialist and took him on on socialized medicine on the floor of the Illinois State Senate.

This clip raises a few questions.

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It's no secret that Illinois conservatives hate the Democrats' cap-and-trade legislation with a passion. Indeed, their intense opposition is likely what led U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk to backtrack from his earlier support for the House climate bill. So it's not surprising that the Republicans running for governor in Illinois would express reservations about the proposal in front of a packed "tea party forum" in Homer Glen last night.

But the GOP candidates didn't simply criticize cap-and-trade as the wrong way to address climate change -- four of them denied that humans have even contributed to global warming.

When asked whether they believe "climate change is caused by human activities," State Sens. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) and Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), DuPage County Board Chair Bob Schillerstrom, and commentator Dan Proft responded by rejecting that premise. Watch thevideo (pardon the shaky camera work):

Apparently Proft thinks that the 2,500 scientists and other climate experts who make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) qualify as "enviro-terrorists."

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With the first semester well underway at most colleges and universities across the state, there's a renewed interest in the Monetary Award Program (MAP), one of the most comprehensive need-based student aid programs in the country. Back in June, while facing a record number of applications and an uncertain budget, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) voted to eliminate the entire grant program for the spring 2010 term, cutting off assistance to about 137,000 students. ISAC's fears were warranted; soon after their decision, the General Assembly passed its stop-gap budget, cutting $220 million from the program's $440 million budget.

For the past month, Gov. Pat Quinn has been sounding the horn about the funding shortfall, telling reporters that members of the General Assembly "have to work together on both sides of the aisle on making sure we have adequate money for our scholarships for our students." Both he and House Speaker Michael Madigan favor a $1-a-pack tax hike on cigarettes to cover the cost. ** Quinn will take that message to the University of Illinois at Chicago next week, where he held a town hall with students on the topic. ** Other lawmakers are also voicing their support for restarting the MAP grants funding. State Rep. Mike Boland (D-Moline) told the Sun-Times that, during college visits this summer, the MAP program was students' primary concern. The Peoria Journal-Star tracked down State Sens. Dale Risinger (R-Peoria) and Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) who echoed Quinn's call for a quick solution. "The MAP grant, I think, is probably the single most important program we have out there," added Dillard. "We have got to find a way to fund it."

Encouragingly, students across the state are organizing to fight for the college aid.

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Over the weekend, Illinois Review posted a series of short interviews with five prospective GOP gubernatorial candidates asking how each would solve Illinois' budget crisis. As you might expect from Republicans fighting it out in a primary, all five advocated in favor of holding the line or cutting tax rates. They also blasted the Democrats for what they characterized as out-of-control spending. But when it came to specifics, the candidates largely violated what we refer to as the "Civic Fed Rule"; i.e, they failed to sufficiently explain how they would close an estimated $10 billion deficit next year.

You can head over to Illinois Review to watch all of the videos (excluding Sen. Matt Murphy, who didn't participate). In the meantime, we've transcribed excerpts from each segment where the candidates provided the most specificity. Here's what they had to say:

Sen. Kirk Dillard:

We are going to manage this state. We’re going to get a handle on Medicaid, which is now our state’s largest expenditure by cracking down on fraud. I’ve just spend two different sessions with former Speaker Newt Gingrich of the United States House … And Speaker Gingrich believes that 10 percent of all Medicaid is fraud. It’s our state’s largest expenditure and I’m going to work with my colleagues like Sen. Dale Righter of Matton and certain professionals to manage the care we are doing in Medicaid.

Let's just entertain the unsubstantiated claim that 10 percent of Medicaid spending in Illinois constitutes waste. After all, it's not like some abuse doesn't occur. In 2007, the state spent $12.6 billion on the program. Trimming the program by 10 percent would net the state an additional $1.26 billion in revenue -- a substantial number, but not nearly enough to cover the state's bills.

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Once Attorney General Lisa Madigan made her electoral plans official, it didn't take long for State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) to jump into the 2010 gubernatorial race. In a recent interview with Rockford Register Star columnist Chuck Sweeny, Dillard touts his experience working as former Gov. Jim Edgar's chief of staff, turning $1.6 billion in inherited debt "into a $1 billion surplus while increasing education funding, cutting in other areas and hiring innovative managers to run departments." (Of course, he tiptoes around that income tax increase made permanent by his boss early on.) While Dillard certainly has a good understanding of how business operates in the governor's mansion, the interview shows he doesn't grasp the issues effecting the state in 2009.

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With his bid for governor in full swing, State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) appeared on Fox Chicago Sunday yesterday to talk about the state budget crisis. Not surprisingly, he tried to oversimplify our structural deficit by attributing this year's $9.2 billion shortfall to "out-of-control spending." The notion that Illinois is on a spending spree has been debunked before. But what caught our ear was Dillard's revisionist history. The full video is below (skip ahead to the 4:00 mark for the relevant portion):

DILLARD: [W]hen I was Jim Edgar's chief of staff, we inherited a mountain of debt then. We eliminated it. We left $1 billion in the state treasury and we doubled the rate of inflation, new money for schools, without a tax increase. And it ought to be able to be done now.

"Without a tax increase," huh? The reality is that Edgar's first term as governor began with him backing two separate efforts -- in 1991 and again in 1993 -- to permanently raise the income tax rate to the current levels of 3 percent for individuals and 4.8 percent for corporations.  Granted, he also pushed through a lot of cuts in those first few years.  But you can't isolate the surplus left at the end of his tenure from the revenue enhancements passed at the beginning.  Nor can you forget that Edgar had the good fortune of governing this state amid a growing economy.  Pat Quinn would surely trade places with him if given the chance.

Another reason Dillard's anti-tax rhetoric falls flat: He himself voiced support for an even higher income tax rate after entering the Senate.

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