•October 28, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Bruce Rauner has cast the budget stalemate as a kind of Armageddon—the decisive battle between good and evil. His problem is that no matter how things turn out, the battle between him and the Democrats in the legislature won’t be decisive.

The walls won’t come tumbling down (to mix biblical metaphors) on the Democrats, who hold big majorities in the legislature, in one fell swoop.

Democrats know that Rauner’s strategy of demanding big changes from them or he won’t sign a tax increase is a flawed and hollow threat.

The governor will, unfortunately, have to support a tax increase, back toward the five percent rate for individuals that obtained until January of this year, or he and the Dems cannot balance a budget. Already, it looks as if the state will fail to make an upcoming pension payment, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.

There are two major problems, one of which cannot be overcome, so far as I can see, and the other with which we as a society don’t know yet how to grapple.

First, the funding to replenish the state’s public employee pension funds each year takes $8 billion off the top of a $35 billion state general funds budget. If we didn’t have that burden, our budget situation would be hunky-dory and wouldn’t take much or any tax increase.

But the state high court has said the state must meet this obligation.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.