Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

June 22, 2017

Illinois’ Fiscal Dumpster Fire Is a Lesson

Gov. Bruce Rauner called it a “banana republic,” and then proceeded to capitulate to Democrat demands.

If you recently bought a lottery ticket in Illinois, the odds are stacked against you — way against you. The Land of Lincoln has gotten itself into such a financial pickle that it may not even be able to pay out lotto winnings, meaning the chance of striking it big would be, literally, zero.

Years of fiscal mismanagement have finally caught up with Illinois, and the state is now facing $130 billion in unfunded public pension liabilities and nearly $15 billion more in debt. And because of certain court-ordered payments the state is required to make, the Illinois comptroller recently sounded the alarm that mandated bills will equal 100% of the state’s monthly revenue. In case the obvious needs emphasis, this is a problem.

It’s so bad even Republican Governor Bruce Rauner didn’t mince words. “We’re like a banana republic,” he said recently. “We can’t manage our money.”

The crisis should hardly be a surprise. As George Will noted last year, despite the state constitution’s requirement of a balanced budget, Illinois hasn’t had such a budget in 25 years.

Additionally, as the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) notes, pension reform has been staring state lawmakers in the face for 20 years. But objects at rest tend to remain at rest, and nothing brings out the inertia in government-union-backed elected officials like suggestions of public pension reform. Hence, the state’s staggering pension debt today.

Gov. Rauner campaigned on lowering the state’s income tax. Butting heads with the Democrat-controlled legislature, however, has led to nearly three years of budget gridlock. Illinois has not had a full-state budget since Rauner’s election in 2014, instead passing stop-gap measures — just like Big Brother at the federal level.

As Investor’s Business Daily notes, “Not surprisingly, the Democrats would like higher taxes to fill the budget holes. … At the heart of it all is the so-called Blue State model of governance of the Democratic Party. It views government as an ever-expanding and always-available ATM to meet all needs, social and otherwise, with a ready supply of taxpayer cash.”

Yet as Margaret Thatcher noted with her typical wit, governments that apply the socialist approach of viewing taxpayers’ money as government’s money “traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”

Unfortunately, it looks like Illinois hasn’t fully learned this lesson. Instead of continuing to hold fast to the principles he’s pledged allegiance to for three years, just yesterday, Rauner caved, offering to hike the state income tax by 32%, expand the sales tax, and add a new tax on cable and satellite TV.

The Wall Street Journal pulled no punches in a scathing editorial, calling Rauner’s move a “capitulation” and “a political defeat by any definition.”

Even worse, as the Journal notes, Rauner’s offer doesn’t include critical fiscal reforms and doesn’t fix the pension crisis.

What will the state get for the capitulation? According to IPI, not much. Even with the tax hike, the state will likely be back in deficit by 2020. The Journal echoes this gloom, noting that while Rauner “may come out the political loser … the citizens of Illinois will suffer the most.” For that, it must be noted the real blame lies with the Chicago Democrats who really run the state. Rauner simply found the Chicago Machine to be too powerful.

While some are raising talks of a federal bailout, IPI’s Ted Dabrowski rightly warns this is a terrible idea: “A federal intervention on that scale would permanently damage healthy competition among states for people, jobs and ideas.”

Indeed, if lawmakers can run a state into the ground and then go to Uncle Sam for help, quickly lining up behind Illinois would be states like New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. (You’ll notice they’re all Democrat states.) Then there’s Puerto Rico, the Democrat-heavy island that aims to become the 51st state in hopes of receiving such a bailout. But make no mistake, taxpayers in “flyover country” have little interest in rescuing these states from their own stupidity.

That’s why Illinois’ lesson should be a lesson for all states. Decades of recklessly overspending taxpayer dollars and overpromising cushy pension benefits for government workers are bound to catch up with you.

That’s one set of Mega Millions numbers you can count on.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.