As we noted in our daily email digest yesterday afternoon (which you can subscribe to here), I appeared on WTTW last night where I discussed the state budget with the Illinois Policy Institute's John Tillman and Sheila Weinberg of the Institute for Truth in Accounting. As you'll notice in the videos below, Tillman apparently believes that more Wal-Marts in Chicago represents the solution to our $10 billion-plus state budget deficit. Here's part one: 

Part two:

On the program, I talked a great deal about the need to meet our outstanding obligations -- to both the pension system and those who do business with the state.  On the latter point, the Peoria Journal-Star editorial board today highlights the struggle faced by one social service agency that is owed over $100,000 from our state government:

[T]hree months or more is too long to wait for groups like Advocates for Access. "We obviously don't have the kind of money to keep paying the bills," Reynolds said. "We have filed for expedited payments, but I don't know what that will mean until I actually get the money."

Her group is having loan papers drawn up now so it can continue operating and meeting payroll. But taking out a loan means paying interest on it - we can't all be deadbeats like Illinois, Inc. - and that means spending extra cash originally donated for programs that help people. She's had to cut back on other expenditures, pink-slip one of her 10 staff members and eliminate a program that has helped 30 families of people with disabilities through the process of buying a home.

It's a tough choice, but necessary, Reynolds says, "because I have to keep the doors open. ... It's like being on a sinking ship and I have to throw things overboard to stay afloat."

Read the whole thing.