So they just ignored all of those Tea Partiers saying that the deficit was the #1 problem, and instead are trying to pay off the deficit?
Please try to keep up. You’re supposed to pay off the deficit by cutting taxes. Everyone knows that.
And by cutting spending. And by not incurring more expenses, like the upkeep on a train nobody will ride.
Since you are invoking the Tea Party platform…such that there is one, I don’t know, you seem to be the expert… where do they stand on taxes vs spending?
Both equally? Or maybe that taxes are enough already and government spending is the main problem?
Well, considering that they go crazy whenever anyone tries to lower their taxes, I’d say that they’re in favor of high taxes, and considering that they also go crazy whenever anyone tries to take away their pork, they don’t have a problem with high spending, either.
Great! What is their plan for cutting $13B out of the Illinois budget? SPECIFICALLY. None of this “fraud and waste” crap. I want line-items that add up to $13B.
Until they give that, it’s just a bunch of hot air.
As long as you asked … Warning: If you work for the government you ain’t gonna like it.
You want to narrow that down a bit? I see that they oppose the tax hike, but I’m not going to go digging through their website for their solutions.
Sorry about that… here’s a link:
http://illinoispolicy.org/news/article.asp?ArticleSource=2284
Aside from that, what did you think of the organization?
Thanks!
As for what I think of the organization, typical think tank (right or left - I generally have little use for think tanks - particularly when they all seem to start from conclusions and work backwards from there).
As for their proposed budget, while I haven’t had time to review all the details what I can see boils down to two major things:
- Cut personnel costs - primarily through staff/salary/pension cuts.
- Avoid any future investment.
a. Massive cuts to infrastructure investment
b. Massive cuts to educational support programs (which can be characterized as investments)
Of the two, the lack of investment is the one that bothers me the most. For infrastructure, major construction will never be cheaper than now (with private construction down and thus not competing for limited resources), not to mention it’s desperately needed.
The cuts to educational support are also troubling. As a minor example, is Illinois not suffering from the general shortage of nurses that the rest of the country is? If they are, why cut Nurses Tuition ($80M - Line 1220 in the spreadsheet available at your link)? Nurses are not something you can go to Nurses Depot and buy when you need them. You have to start training them a minimum of two years before you think they’ll be needed. You can, of course, just raise nurses’ salaries until other states’ nurses come to Illinois, but don’t you think that, at a minimum, that works out net zero (although realistically I would guess it’s net negative - you end up paying more that way). As I said, that’s just a small example, but many of the other programs seem similar (i.e., the complete cutting of Agricultural Education).
In short, no investment and less education. Sure it balances the current budget without additional taxes, but at what future cost?
To be fair, one could call not borrowing money (by closing the budget gap) an investment. But of course, then you have to look at what the respective rates of return are. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can both borrow money and invest it, but can get more return on the investment than the interest you pay on the loans, then you should be borrowing as much as you can get your hands on.