Posted on 01/12/2015 8:08:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Illinois's new Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, will be sworn in today, and he is facing what most experts agree to be the worst fiscal crisis of any state in the nation.
The Democrat-controlled legislature simply can't restrain itself. That, and a pension time bomb set to go off in the next few years, swamping the state's finances, makes Rauner's job the most challenging of any new governor elected in November.
Some of the numbers in this Reuter's report are incredible:
Pension payments are projected to jump to nearly $7.6 billion in fiscal 2016 from $6.8 billion this fiscal year. And outgoing Democrat Governor Pat Quinn's budget office recently estimated Illinois' pile of unpaid bills will climb to $9.8 billion at the end of fiscal 2016, from $4 billion this year.
"In the modern era ... the state has never been in this poor of financial condition," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a Chicago-based government finance watchdog group.
To make progress, Rauner will need to find a way to work with a legislature dominated by longtime Democrat power broker Mike Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House. David Merriman, an Illinois budget expert at the University of Illinois, said Rauner needs to focus on what is politically achievable. "You have a Democratic legislature and a Republican governor so they're going to have to figure out some way to work together," he said.
Robert Amodeo, a portfolio manager at asset manager Western Asset, put Illinois in a same class with the most troubled municipal bond issuers in the nation. "We will continue to monitor developments in Puerto Rico, New Jersey and especially Illinois, all of which face challenging fiscal conditions," Amodeo said.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
three words....acorn,odungo,handouts
He should just issue executive orders like Obama.
I wish him the best of luck with the Democrat dirt bags in the state house.
Including California? We have over 400 billion dollars in pension liabilities.
Devote scarce funds to hanging dim-bulb-crats.
Sell tickets for the hangings.
You’ll be in the black in no time.
Heck, go national and televise....even more money.
Remember, a dead liberal is money in the bank.
No federal bailouts.
When Obama said he would approve the new customs plaza for Detroit but only if Rick Snyder would give $100 million to Detroit pension funds, Snyder turned it down and ordered the project started without federal “help”.
I live here and I still can’t believe the Democrat Machine wasn’t able to lie, cheat, or steal reelection for their puppet Pat Quinn. It will be a long road, and highly dependent on the people having had enough and being willing to take an independent stand.
Someone compared it Rauner’s job to pulling not just one car out of the ditch, but a fully loaded freight train. He will be pulling in the right direction but is going to need a lot of help.
And we are building a fr..kin train in the desert!
Brown wants a monument to his name like his old man and he choose the high speed train in the desert. Give me a break
Well .. he needs to stop considering “political” issues, and just deal with the fiscal issues. Understand the DEMS will not like it .. BooHoo
And .. he should be encouraged to contact Governors in Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana .. and get their suggestions on how to right the Illinois ship. Ohio and Wisc have done miracles .. using conservative principles.
And .. he needs to fortify his SPINE .. and not be swayed by what garbage the DEMS will say about him.
Illinois .. get ready to be prosperous again.
The Illinois state debt is $25k/resident which according to the WSJ is #1 in the USA.
I wouldn’t worry to much though, because as a vital part of the Democrat electoral strategy, they are bound to get some relief.
It's really difficult to imagine the fedgov of Obama or Obama 2.0 not riding in to save the Dems top 3 of Cal, Ill, and NYS.
I live here too Bob and there's not a dime's worth of difference between Rauner and any democrat politician in the state, that's why the combine didn't care who got elected, both Quinn and Rauner are exactly the same.
Please see my #13.
"prosperity" ain't gonna happen with a liberal governor, no matter if he has an "R" behind his name. Illinois is run by the "Combine".
And .. of course, you dare not challenge the status quo !!!
I know for sure Scott Walker didn’t ..!!!!!!1
Lord have mercy!
Finish the job. Increase government spending and taxes.
The Combine pre-selected Rauner.
>> "prosperity" ain't gonna happen with a liberal governor, no matter if he has an "R" behind his name. Illinois is run by the "Combine". <<
Yep, GrayBeard nailed it.
If you look at the numbers, RINO Rauner was polling much WEAKER against Quinn (he was in a statistical dead heat) than conservative non-combiner Brady was polling against Quinn four years earlier (Brady was consistently 6-8 points AHEAD of Quinn, before "losing" on election day)
The reason why Rauner was able to "win" with much weaker numbers than Brady is because the combine allowed it, and the Chicago Democrat machine is just fine with having a token RINO Governor to be the scapegoat while Madigan enjoys a veto proof majority and can run the state from the legislature however he wants.
Rauner is the Illinois equivalent of Michael Bloomberg -- some filthy rich liberal Democrat businessman who came in and bought himself the GOP nomination because there was an opening and the Dem slot was taken. If Rauner had posed ANY threat to the status quo in this state, he wouldn't be taking the oath today.
We've seen this same old tune played time and time again, like all the conservative groups who gushed about how "fiscal conservative" Ahnuld was going to "Save California" a decade ago. Rauner has already broken his "no new taxes" and "let the people decide" camapign pledges. If I hear one more conservative website gush about how Rauner is "going to turn things about in deep blue Illinois and show that conservativism can work there", I'm going to puke.
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