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State budget
Quick Hit
by Josh Kalven
12:02pm
Tue Mar 2, 2010

The Tribune's Cop-Out

In their editorial last weekend, the Tribune relied on studies from both the Civic Federation and Civic Committee in laying out a "no tax-hike" budget plan.  But Greg Hinz reports today that the directors of both organizations take issue with some of the editorial's assumptions.  Here's the response he got from the paper:

The Tribune's John McCormick, who wrote the editorial, noted that the piece was titled "A no-tax-hike option," and stated in its second paragraph that, "We haven't voted yes or no on this."  In other words, he said, it was just a discussion starter.

I'm sorry, but that is just incredibly lame.  If you read through the entire piece, it ends with a paragraph warning that an income tax increase would "perpetuate how Illinois now does business" and "give taxpayers today's state government at tomorrow's higher price."  It's pretty darn clear where the board stands on this issue.

Quick Hit
by Josh Kalven
11:28am
Tue Mar 2, 2010

Matt's Back With His Medicaid Attack

Republican State Sen. Matt Murphy appeared on WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday to discuss the budget crisis and, wouldn't you know it, he revived his claim that Medicaid spending is a huge drag on our state finances and Rod Blagojevich is to blame for it.  Watch it:

A few quick rebuttals: 1) The largest Medicaid expansions took place under the administration of Republican Gov. George Ryan -- not Blagojevich.  The system grew the fastest under Ryan, as well.  It'd be nice if reporters pointed this out once and a while; 2) When measuring Medicaid enrollees as a percent of the total state population, Illinois ranks in the middle-of-the-pack nationwide; 3) In FY 2006 (the last year for which data is available), only nine states spent less per Medicaid enrollee than Illinois.

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
2:05pm
Mon Mar 1, 2010

The Tribune's Faulty Fiscal Approach

State Budget

In a lengthy editorial Saturday, the Tribune editorial board laid out their own flawed plan to solve the state budget crisis over two years without a tax increase.