Posted on 07/05/2010 4:25:43 AM PDT by blam
Illinois Has Stopped Paying Bills Even For Essential Services
Vincent Fernando, CFA
Jul. 5, 2010, 12:56 AM
Image: The White House
If California was America's Greece, then Illinois is America's Spain.
California's horrid financial situation initially jolted Americans with the notion that a state could fail, and now Illinois is making people realize that California's problems aren't a one-state fluke.
New York Times via MSNBC:
Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.
He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.
“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office.
Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”
Read more here >
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
So surprising that the only solution they can think of to try and fix there issues is raising taxes and those damned repubs keep getting in there way and wont let them. /s
It’s sort of like being in business and having a recession curtail sales and having banks not lending to tide you over until the slow payers pry lose part of what they owe you and lawyers quit paying at all.
He's been the state Comptroller since 1998. When did he think it was going to get better after each year of overspending and entitlements?
Hopefully whatever those essential services are cut you off. Like all Governmennts you will not learn until it smacks you in the face.
When one does business with thieves(unions) and LIARS(uh, politicians), what does one expect?
Comptrollers usually don’t have much to say about how a bunch of fools in the legislature spend money.
Guess it’s high time to evaluate what constitutes “essential service”.
Unless tax revenues have fallen to zero,they better be paying something out.Oh that’s right,all the useless govenment paper shufflers get their pay checks first.
Absolutely. State paid rehab center (for druggies)-no. Child care-no. Schools and the state university. Yes, but their budgets are probably at least 1/3 full of waste.
Correct, Comptrollers simply report. The State Treasurer however, cuts the checks and spends the money. Our state treasurer, Alexi Giannoulias, the current Democrat Candidate for Senate (Obama's old seat) spent all the money at the behest of our former governor, Rod Blagojevich, and the current incompetent jackass, Pat Quinn.
Giannoulias also saw to it his family bank, "Broadway Bank" lent more than $42 million dollars to mobsters in a money-laundering scheme, and the same Giannoulias family withdrew more than $120 million in capital from the bank in the 2 years before it went belly-up and the feds had to take it over and bail it out.
Yep, Illinois politics!
And to think, before the 6 years of Blago and past 2 of Quinn the state debt/deficit was less than 2 billion dollars. They've run this thing up to more than 24 billion dollars in debt, deficit and unfunded state mandates (pensions) in 8 years.
WTG Illinois Democrats! And the rest of you are just now seeing the CARNAGE that Obama and the Democrats foisted on us in Illinois, you're getting the same across the rest of the country!
Here's your hope and change alright! (/barf)
Police, Fire Department. Period. Everything else GONE.
Just one more keen example of liberals running a state into financial ruin.DemoRats at the helm are like foxes controlling the hen houses. Home state of the Bam too—no surprise. Maybe Oprah can bail them out?
The rat rots from the head down.
Don’t forget about George Ryan..
And the Checkums.
Hey, I know what! How about cutting non-essential services? Then you cut “essential” but not really “essential” services, and then you try to live within your means.
My relatives wonder why I have no desire to move across the river. Here’s part of it.
I grew up on a farm in east central Illinois and graduated from the U of I at Champaign/Urbana. I recently got a letter from my alma mater whining about money problems and the state not paying them and asking for Alumni donations. I live in Texas and my kids went to OU. Frankly, their request fell of very deaf ears.
You missed an opportunity to rant at the usual university bias towards Democrats. I’ll bet they stood by cheering as the Rats ran the state into tatters. Let them live with the consequences.
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