Rauner asks for 7 billion in cuts to health, pensions, universities, transit and cities

[ND-Dem]

epublican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday dubbed his first spending plan a “turnaround budget” for a financially shaky state, but Democrats rebuffed his proposed cuts to health care for the poor, government worker pensions, state universities, mass transit and cities across Illinois..

“This is our last, best chance to get our house in order,” the governor declared during a speech that drew tepid applause from the lawmakers he addressed. “Let’s get it done, together.”

Rauner went after some of state government’s political sacred cows: Medicaid; money for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s beleaguered city budget; the CTA and Metra; public employee health insurance and retirement benefits; and the University of Illinois.

All of those interests sounded dire warnings and geared up their powerful lobbying operations to fight the proposed budget. Some Democratic leaders reacted angrily to the rookie governor’s address, harking back to his days as a partner in a private equity investment firm.

“One of the things Gov. Rauner has to learn is the Illinois Constitution refers to the General Assembly and the governor as partners,” said Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. “He wants to run the government like it's a business, we're middle management, and he's the CEO, and we must take orders. That's not going to work.”

But Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno said Wednesday that Rauner’s call to cut the budget should not have come as a surprise.

“I think people understand that Illinois is in dire circumstances and we absolutely need to change the way we do things,” said Radogno, of Lemont. “This is the starting gun, not the checkered flag.”

The governor also wants to hire 473 more guards at state prisons...The biggest and perhaps most controversial item on Rauner’s budget agenda was his call to shift current public employees on July 1 into a lower-tier pension classification for new hires that provides vastly reduced retirement benefits...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/chi-bruce-rauner-state-budget-speech-20150218-story.html#page=1


Rauner v. Jerry Brown: Which state do you want to live in? Which country do you want to live in?

What world do you want to live in? The world of slaves, or the world of free people?

[deutsey]

1. "We need Syriza in Illinois"

http://www.thenation.com/article/198073/we-need-syriza-illinois

The corporate right has a worldview, and, as Edelman’s speech demonstrates, it also has a power analysis from which all strategy flows. In the 1930s, the progressive movement’s analysis of power rested squarely on the faith that workers in large numbers—organized workers—could challenge unfettered corporate power and improve social conditions. And for many generations, through their unions, that is what they did. Now, progressives in and outside of unions have replaced power structure analysis with short-term tactical maneuvers that rely on something fashionably known as narrative change, done best through paid social media, devoid of vision and without the active participation of large numbers of workers. Worse still, despite our defeats in Wisconsin, our own movement continues to throw large numbers of women and African-Americans under the bus by characterizing public service workers as somehow different from, and of lesser importance than, the heroes of the twentieth century’s labor struggles, the largely white male labor force of heavy industry.

[ND-Dem]

2. +100. the strategy is so stupid, you'd almost think it was designed by the upper & upper

middle class for their own ends.