After watching again and again as Illinois lawmakers relied on financial gimmicks to pay for core services, budget experts knew it was only a matter of time before Springfield would be forced to confront the state's ballooning structural deficit.

Last week, the Pew Center on the States confirmed that the moment of reckoning is near, ranking the Land of Lincoln among 10 states now on the brink of financial peril.  The Pew researchers recounted how Illinois lawmakers -- in order to avoid generating more revenue by modernizing the income and sales tax systems -- have resorted to short-sighted budget maneuvers, such as delaying bill payments and skimping on the state's annual pension contributions.

Now the nation is in a recession and those bills are coming due, leaving Illinois' an estimated $12.8 billion in the hole in FY 2011.

"It's like a balloon mortgage," University of Illinois at Chicago public policy professor Michael Pagano explained during a budget roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight last Thursday. "At the end of the period you have to make a big payment for what you've been consuming. We've now been consuming a lot of state resources for the past eight years without paying for them." Watch it (full video here):

For some perspective consider this: On a per capita basis, Illinois is one of the lowest-spending states when it comes to core services.  Yet we still can't generate enough revenue to cover our obligations.  Why?  Because we are one of a mere mere seven states with flat income tax system.  Moreover, our 3 percent rate remains lower than the other six (Colorado: 4.63 percent, Michigan: 4.35 percent, Tennessee: 6 percent, New Hampshire: 5 percent, Pennsylvania: 3.07 percent, and Utah: 5 percent).

Over the weekend, the News-Gazette's Tom Kacich called out the Republican gubernatorial hopefuls for remaining in denial over the need to raise revenue:

The Republican gubernatorial candidates can pretend otherwise, but one of them may "discover" upon taking office early in 2011 that things are worse than expected and we can't just cut our way out of this long-developing financial predicament.

It's happened to other Republicans (remember Govs. Ogilvie, Thompson and Edgar), and it could – depending on which party wins next year's election – happen again.

Meanwhile, Fox Chicago Sunday host Dane Placko took Illinois Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno on this past weekend, attempting to get her to acknowledge that "some sort of revenue increase" will be necessary. As you can see in the video below, she insisted on keeping her head in the sand:

PLACKO: There has to be some sort of revenue increase. We've had a number of Republican gubernatorial candidates on this show over the past few weeks. Isn't it a little disingenuous for everyone of them to say we can cut our way out of this.  We can't cut our way out of this, can we?

RADOGNO: The problem is there is a limit to what you can cut. But there are many other areas of state government where we can do things much better and much more efficiently. For examples  pension reforms. And my problems is, when I represent my constituents, I can't go to them and look them in the eye and say "we're too afraid to means test senior rides, we're too afraid to reform the pension system. So you just send us your money to the same old rotten, corrupt system."

PLACKO: It's true that there are efficiencies that are going to be made and pension reform is a big matter. Look at the deficits we're facing. You can't cut your way out of those deficits, right? There's going to have to be some revenue increase.

RADOGNO: I can't say that with certainty because we haven't even tried to do things more efficiently.

Every public official who takes to the airwaves this campaign season asserting that this budget can be balanced without new tax revenue, the reaction from media figures should be one of incredulity.  As the State Journal-Register editorial board wrote several weeks ago: "Those candidates who promise you no pain, those who say things can be solved by just making nips and tucks and magically creating private sector jobs — they have just lied to you."