Q. Even though new income tax revenues are rolling in, state Democrats want to borrow heavily to catch up on back debts. So, is it fair of Republicans to say
N
o,
our creditors can wait?
A. That’s the $8.75 billion question, now, isn’t it?
The hot issue in Springfield in advance of Wednesday’s budget address by Gov. Pat Quinn is a proposal from Senate Democrats to borrow $8.75 billion in order to help pay off a $6.7 billion backlog of overdue bills from service providers as well as $4 billion in other obligations in which we’re behind.
And the simple answer is no, it’s not fair.
We entered into contracts with these vendors — private agencies and organizations that provide services on the state’s behalf — and we’re nearly six months behind paying them what we owe. The owners and employees of these small businesses aren’t the ones who mismanaged state finances for several decades and played the accounting tricks that stopped working when the economy went sour.
But that’s my answer. Here’s the answer given by state Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, at a Senate GOP news conference Tuesday at the Capitol:
“The real question is, has it been fair to mismanage the state to the point where we’ve had to stiff them for so long?” he said “And at some point, are you going to stop doing the same things that have led to that result, so that you can actually treat people better?”
Murphy went on, “We have seen the tax-borrow-and-spend cycle play out a number of different times, and every single time it does, the state ends up in a worse situation. The backlog of bills gets longer, and the call for higher taxes gets louder from some down here. At a certain point, you’ve just got to say stop and dig in and pivot and go in a different direction. And we feel like this is an opportunity to do that.”
“We” is the evidently strongly united Republican caucus, which has the votes to kill the borrowing plan. And “pivot” is exactly the right word — turn away from the ethical, not to mention economic, question of whether paying our bills promptly is the fair, right and even smart thing to do and instead seize the “opportunity” to twist some legislative arms.
In fact, even referring to the proposal as a borrowing plan is misleading. It’s more of a repayment plan, since, in a very real sense, we’ve
already
borrowed the money.
Q. But isn’t the very idea really “nothing more than paying off a credit card with another credit card?”
A. That’s how Sen. Dan Duffy, R-Lake Barrington, put it at the news conference, and in a way, yes. Though it’s more like taking out a second mortgage or arranging a consolidation loan in order to pay off at a lower interest rate a raft of debts that are racking up higher interest rates. It may sound outrageous to borrow as a way to reduce long-term debt, but families do it all the time.
Gov. Quinn’s office points out that the cost of not paying these bills goes beyond the interest penalties on late payments and includes higher contract costs from skittish vendors and argues that, long-term, paying these bills promptly will be a net plus for taxpayers.
Q. So what specific budget cuts is the united, pivoting GOP team going to demand now that it has this leverage?
A. A reporter asked this of Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno of Lemont at the same news conference, and Radogno’s answer didn’t suggest that she’d really thought it through.
“I’m talking about efficiencies in programs,” she said. “We need to hold people’s feet to the fire … and there’s nothing that is a sacred cow. That’s going to include how we look at education, public safety, everything.”
When pressed further, she suggested reductions in child care, eliminating increases in education funding or perhaps even the across-the-board agency cuts similar to those recently imposed by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
Q. Are those bad ideas?
A. Some are, some aren’t. But they’re not incompatible with the fair and simple notion: Illinois, pay your bills.
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.
