Legislative leaders offer little optimism for smooth year in Springfield

[Joeychgo]

Posted by David Mendell at 9:25 p.m.
If the year-long tussle in Springfield over budget priorities, capital projects and transit funding proved frustrating for voters in 2007, the state's legislative leaders on Wednesday night gave little cause for optimism that 2008 will go any smoother.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), in particular, said he did not see the "collective will" among lawmakers to make the tough fiscal and policy decisions and reach consensus over these matters. Madigan said that rapidly rising pension costs, Medicaid expenses and other liabilities mean that legislators must either raise taxes or cut spending.
"I don't have an answer," Madigan said. "You don't have the collective will to do either/or."
The speaker was part of a forum at Northwestern University that, in a rarity in Illinois politics, brought together the four legislative leaders in one public place. Perhaps because of the university setting, Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego and Senate Republican leader Frank Watson of Greenville engaged in an extremely collegial discussion that more resembled a civics course than a political roundtable.
Jones stressed throughout the evening how difficult it is to be a political leader. He said it is incumbent upon lawmakers to make tough political choices, such as restructuring the state's income tax code in order to raise revenue. Jones offered no specifics, however.
Madigan took that opening to criticize his chief political foe, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was not announced as part of the forum, for his intransigence on raising taxes.
"If you are one who feels that Illinois should raise its taxes for whatever purpose, if you believe in that, understand that you are looking at a situation where the governor has proclaimed that he will veto the bill," Madigan said.
Madigan then added how difficult it would be for the legislature to override. It takes a three-fifths vote in Springfield to override a veto.
Blagojevich, however, did go back on his long-standing pledge not to raise taxes as part of this month's mass transit deal that will raise the sales tax in the six-county Chicago area.
Watson told the estimated 125 to 150 people who turned out on a snowy night that he doesn't think the General Assembly should raise taxes on businesses, as the governor proposed last year for his ambitious health care plan that failed to launch.
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