What do Illinois and the partially sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia have in common? They both have reckless foolish captains who steered their ships into troubled waters and then either failed to recognize or chose to ignore they had/have a problem on their hands. Capt. Francesco Schettino is in deep trouble. He may face criminal charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn should face charges for sheer incompetence and reckless behavior – at the very least.
The Costa Concordia and Illinois are two ships listing badly. The partially sunken cruise ship cannot sink anymore because it was in relatively shallow water and currently rests on the bottom of the sea floor with half the ship still above water. Unfortunately, Illinois has no sea floor to prop it up. The state can sink deeper and deeper, and according to the Civic Federation, Illinois’ budgetary deficit of approximately $8 to $9 billion will balloon to $35 billion in four to five years if nothing is done. That deficit does not include the approximate $160 billion shortfall in state worker pension contributions.
Quinn gave the State of the State speech on Wednesday, Feb. 1, and said “Illinois is moving forward.” That bit of comical insanity is no different than the Costa Concordia captain telling investigators that “he tripped into the life boat,” and that’s how he ended up there rather than on the ship he was suppose to captain or go down with.
Despite the fact that Illinois still cannot pay its bills – even after the largest tax increase in state history – Quinn proposed more spending programs without a way to pay for them. Allegedly that will come at a budget speech later this month. Some of Quinn’s “ideas” include spending more on early childhood education, spending to upgrade technology in classroom and increasing MAP grants for college students. As noted, Quinn did not say how the broke state would pay for additional spending programs.
Much of Quinn’s new spending initiatives center on more education spending. Gov.: Do you realize that Illinois already has one of the highest property tax rates in the nation? Do you realize that people are being forced out of their homes – and not because they can’t afford the mortgage but because they can no longer afford the high property taxes that keep going up and up and up? Do you and your fellow wasteful spending education leaders throughout the state realize that the money spigot from Illinois taxpayers cannot continue? Figure out a way to spend the same on education, if not less. You cannot spend more!
Despite falling property values, homeowners see annual large increases in their property tax bills largely because school systems in this state continually increase their budgets without any regard for the citizens funding them. Roughly two-thirds of homeowner’s property tax bills go to the schools. While education is important and we need to spend money on it, the increases must stop! No ifs, ands or buts about it. Schools have the money. They have plenty of money. The problem is they waste a lot, there is little accountability and while most folks have seen little to no raises the past few years, educators still enjoy annual raises of at least 4 percent while contributing little to their health care and pensions.
In the past decade, the state has lost roughly 1 million people. That is a lot of tax revenue lost and it also should mean the need for fewer classrooms as well as there would be fewer students today than a decade ago. Fewer classrooms should equate to LESS spending, not more!
In addition to the state’s fiscal woes, Quinn, not surprisingly, did not mention the state’s high unemployment rate, which skyrocketed after the ill-fated state income tax increase was voted on in January 2011 and currently hovers around 10 percent. How can a state be “moving forward” when it is worse off than it was just one year ago?
A little more than a year, Democrat Representative Barbara Flynn Currie said “It’s time for us to be adults, face the crisis and figure out a solution,” to the state’s fiscal problems. That solution she said we need to be “adults” about was increasing taxes in Illinois. In the Feb. 2, 2012 Chicago Tribune, Currie basically says the state is better off for the tax increase. Yet, she also admonishes the Tribune for being against Quinn’s plan to borrow $8 billion so the state can begin to pay down its backlog of bills. Hey, Barbara, wasn’t the tax increase suppose to solve that problem? Huh, Barbara? Barbara, how about YOU being “adult” and realize the state cannot continue down its tax-and-spend fiscal insanity plan?
Illinois is sinking. Its bond rating has been downgraded and is now the worst in the nation. Unlike the Costa Concordia, which cannot sink any further, Illinois can. In that regard, Illinois is like another famous ship: The Titanic. That ship rests several miles below the surface.
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