During his fly-around tour across the state yesterday, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady repeatedly said that the state faces a "$2.5 billion deficit."  Here he is on WFLD's Good Day Chicago yesterday saying that Quinn "admitted he was $2.5 billion in deficit this year":

In fact, when the Quinn administration released their preliminary budget figures late last month, they "admitted" a much, much larger deficit than $2.5 billion -- in both the current fiscal year and the next one.  From Voices for Illinois Children's analysis of the preliminary numbers:

[The Governor's Office of Management and Budget] estimates that the General Funds will have a cumulative deficit of $6.2 billion at the end of the FY 2010. Without new revenue, the FY 2011 budget will have a $5.3 billion shortfall, even after $2 billion in spending cuts. The result would be cumulative, multi-year deficit of $11.5 billion.

So what exactly is Brady referring to when he cites the "$2.5 billion" figure?  It's not exactly clear.  Moreover, why aren't reporters demanding he be more realistic about the financial catastrophe facing this state?  Instead, many of them are uncritically reporting his vague, pie-in-the-sky budget plan, as the Southern's Rob Crow did this morning:

Brady has proposed a 10 percent across-the-board cut in state spending to pay for his proposed tax cuts.

"I have to cut state spending by 10 percent if I'm going to pay for my tax breaks, if I'm going to reconcile the budget in a balanced way, and pay back the backlog of unpaid bills that Gov. Quinn and Gov. Blagojevich have accumulated," he said."

It's really great that Brady has a plan to cover his proposed tax breaks.  But the local media needs to demand that he put forth a plan to cover the gaping deficit.  Until he does that, this is all nonsense.

At least a few voices in the local media are calling Brady out for his budget malarkey.  Today, the Peoria Journal-Star editorial board wondered if he is using a "different calculator":

One of the major reasons we did not endorse Brady in the Republican primary was because we didn't believe he had a credible budget plan. Fundamentally, if you don't want to raise more revenue through higher taxes - a defensible stance, especially in a recession - how do you then cut $13 billion, the reported size of the state's looming deficit, out of a $26 billion core operations budget? And how do you achieve that without making matters worse?

And Capitol Fax's Rich Miller asked to see Brady's budget plan on paper:

$3.5 billion in spending cuts? Plus a $1 billion tax cut? And the budget is magically balanced? Waiter, I want what he’s having. [...]

A ten percent cut of just the operating budget wouldn’t even be $3 billion. I really would like to see his numbers on one sheet of paper.

More like this, please.