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News
'It's become quite a chess game' : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, Illinois'It's become quite a chess game'
| Local state lawmakers reflect on a divisive spring legislative session
| by Tony Scott and Matt Schury
| 6/7/2012
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State Rep. Tom Cross, R-Oswego, sat in his office in Plainfield Monday afternoon with one of his aides and said they were "just trying to figure out what happened this year."
The General Assembly ended its spring session last Thursday, completing some objectives - they approved a Medicaid overhaul, for example - but leaving others, such as a pension reform bill, at the state Capitol.
Cross said the governor's office had contacted him about a meeting this week, but that he wasn't sure if or when a summer session would happen.
"A lot of it's gonna depend on what Quinn and Madigan are gonna do, and I'll know more this week or next week; I just don't know what they're up to," he said. "It's become quite a chess game... that's unfair to taxpayers, it's unfair to teachers, it's unfair to kids and schools, and it's frankly got to be very frustrating."
State House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, punted the pension reform bill to Cross and Gov. Pat Quinn after the governor and Cross both objected to Madigan's proposal to shift pension cost burdens on to suburban and downstate school districts.
"I remember (Madigan) filed a bill at 7:50 for an 8 a.m. committee, and it was kind of a curve ball," he said. "He and I sponsored a bill all last year, and he never brought up this cost shift at all."
Cross said Madigan's proposal ends up being an eight to 10 percent hit to local school districts, he said, "at a minimum."
"What grates on me is, a good portion of this problem has been created by the state, and now he wants to shift it over to locals, which means we'll have eight to 10 percent less resources for classrooms, and I think that's wrong," he said. "We objected to it, as did the governor; the governor said he didn't think it was fair either. We had a couple very contentious days on the House floor because of this approach. It's either gonna mean a 10 percent property tax increase or it's gonna mean 10 percent less money in the schools; there's no upside for suburban and downstate schools."
He said he and the governor's plan would be that "the state would keep paying it."
"A lot of it's gonna depend on what Quinn and Madigan are gonna do, and I'll know more this week or next week; I just don't know what they're up to," he said. "It's become quite a chess game... that's unfair to taxpayers, it's unfair to teachers, it's unfair to kids and schools, and it's frankly got to be very frustrating."
Cross said he didn't support the cigarette tax, which will up the cost of a pack of cigarettes by $1 in Illinois. He said another proposed tax, a five percent tax on satellite television services, was approved by the Senate but never made it onto the House floor for a vote.
In terms of the impact of local government bodies, Cross said the local government distributive fund, a revenue stream that is sometimes considered as a potential cut, was not affected by the General Assembly this session.
"We were pretty strong in fighting that," he said.
Cross said the General Assembly "did some good things" in the spring, including a series of cuts and changes to the state's Medicaid program, which is projected to save the state $1.6 billion.
"The fact that we reformed the Medicaid system was good," he said. "We did what I thought was the right way to do it - we did it in a bipartisan manner. And I give credit to both Democrat and Republican legislators who worked countless hours to come up with a compromise bill in a bipartisan, collaborative effort. And we ought to do that with everything."
Asked about the rancor between the two parties in Springfield, Cross said they can work together but said Madigan would get in the way.
"I had the approach, I think things are so bad that we need to work together, and I had people in our party say 'That's the wrong approach, we didn't cause the mess,' (but) I think we need to help fix it because our state's in real, real trouble," he said. "But the Speaker kind of deviated from that bipartisanship approach with respect to pensions and said, 'This is it; take it or leave it.' And that's an unhealthy approach."
Lauzen: some progress
made during spring session
Asked about something positive coming out of the spring session, state Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, said it is just keeping the state solvent.
"Not being the laughing stock of the country; the punch line of late night comedy shows," he said. "Some progress was made but there was pretty dramatic delays on others."
He said that lawmakers are finally looking at some of the tough issue regarding Medicaid and pension reform.
"What was really good about this year is that finally we are talking about the right subjects. For five years I have been given national addresses on the problems and some potential solutions that we can have in Illinois."
He said he was very disappointed something the General Assembly could pass pension reform but didn't like Madigan's proposal to shift costs to local taxing districts.
"Certainly I am admittedly opposed to shifting the cost of this fouled up mess to the local school districts and local governments," Lauzen said. "Over my dead body-I would never consider a yes vote on that."
He adds that he understands the theory behind having school districts pay more to the point that if they are the ones setting the wages they should pay for the pensions. But ultimately sees the proposal as largely shifting the burden of the pension mess to the local agencies without any real fixes.
"But when something is as fouled up as this is you have to fix it before you hand it over to somebody else," Lauzen said. "In rugby they call that a buddy pass."
He explained that a buddy pass is when a player with the ball sees the defense coming down on them and throws the ball over to a fellow player before they get tackled.
The pass, Lauzen explains, is usually slow and high causing the other player to lift their arms up, exposing their ribs and body before catching it.
"You toss it (the ball) up kind of slowly to he guy running behind you kind of slow and up in the air so that he's got to raise his arms and expose his ribs-that's the buddy pass," he said.
The better approach he says is called "cap and age."
"Cap the abuses of these-mostly (school district) administrators-who are walking off with huge amounts of pension," he said. "They need to cap those abuses."
Secondly, Lauzen says he would like to see the age of retirement eligibility increased from 55 to 62. He notes that 62 is the early age for Social Security eligibility.
He admits that capping abuses he sees as having largely symbolic value.
"But the age proposal adds seven more years that people pay in and seven fewer years that people are talking out and naturally there has to be some grandfather clause," he said.
He adds that he has been sponsoring legislation to this effect for three years.
Lauzen said he is also pushing for an amendment to Illinois' Constitution that would require the state to be accountable for making the pension payments.
He estimates the unfunded pension liability debt the state is carrying to be around $80 to $100 billion.
Illinois' bond rating could be in trouble if pension reform is not implemented soon but he doesn't believe there will be a special summer session to pass a bill.
An alternate proposal to Madigan's cost shifting proposal would change how the cost-of-living increase is calculated or how much retirees get in state-subsidized health care.
Lauzen calls this a "Hobbesian choice" after the political philosophy Thomas Hobbes.
"We are just asking for a protracted lawsuit that is going to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said. "They are like kicking each other in the shins as opposed to the cap, age and constitutional amendment--that's agreeable to people I have been testing that for two to there years."
Nevertheless, he doesn't believe the General Assembly will meet this summer
"I know that on the surface it looks like, Oh my gosh, that's certain," he said. "A lot of people say that all this drama is just low political theater, that they're not really sincere in solving this problem."
On Medicaid reform Lauzen said he voted no and explained that vote by using a metaphor involving a dentist.
"If your dentist tells you to floss and brush a couple of times a day and come and visit him every nine months to a year if you don't do that what they have to do is pull out the teeth and that's what they did unfortunately (with Medicaid)," he said.
More specifically he said there was a huge expansion in one of the parts of the Medicaid reform bill, which he opposes. He explained that the expansion would add 100,000 more patients to Medicaid in return for what he sees as a bookkeeping measure that affects how unpaid bills are handled at the end of the year.
"You mean you traded off a bookkeeping device for a 100,000 (more) people on Medicaid," Lauzen said.
"It was really penny-wise and pound foolish. The reforms that went through-yeah they're going to save money-well that's what they contend-I know there is going to be pain and there are going to be people upset."
He added that the bill would discontinue the prescription medication program Illinois Cares Rx.
"What happens when you cut off people's medication? They get sick and end up in the hospital so is that really going to save you money?" he said. "Well, what happens when you cut back on home care? More people end up in nursing homes," he said.
Opposed cigarette tax,
gambling expansion
Regarding a bill that the increases the tax to $1 per pack on cigarettes, Lauzen said he voted against it because it will do more harm than good.
"We have a spending problem here and if we paper it over with yet another tax increase what we're going to see is a hemorrhaging of cigarette sales," he said.
Lauzen insisted that border cities like St. Louis or cities near Northwestern Indiana and Wisconsin would see more people from Illinois buying cigarettes.
Lauzen said he also voted against a bill that would expand gambling in Illinois because he believes there is already enough of it in Illinois. If the bill were approve it would put Illinois second in the country in gambling, Lauzen claims.
"We would have slightly less gambling than Las Vegas," he said.
He said he understands the moral argument but that is not why he voted against the bill.
"I like playing poker," Lauzen said adding that he also plays craps. "I'm not making the moral argument but I think that it is true that you say, 'Wait a second where does the money go that is lost?' and the answer is that is doesn't go to a mortgage payment it doesn't go to a car payment or kids education."
He continues most of the money goes to the out of state companies that run the casinos.
"Rather than focusing on making Illinois employer-not business-but employer friendly-getting people jobs-look at what we're concentrated on," he said.
Hatcher: in favor of
special summer session
State Rep. Kay Hatcher, R-Yorkville, said she would like to give the General Assembly an "A+ for effort" but would like the grade to be reevaluated after a special session.
"Everybody was pushing to get this stuff down so an A+ plus for effort and for the big things that got accomplished you bet those were A's, but a bad pension bill I worse than no pension bill right now," she said.
When asked when she thought Illinois would see pension reform, Hatcher responded, "the optimistic answer is just as soon as possible."
"This is going to be one of the biggest changes that has ever happened in the state of Illinois," she said.
Hatcher noted that the possible legislation, a 300-page document, was brought just 48 hours before the end of the session.
"It's 300 pages and I have been reading it so that I fully understand what's been proposed," she said. "I think there will be more adjustments coming forward. We have got to find a resolution, this is not a political issue, it's a survival issue for the state of Illinois and the people who live and work here," she said.
She disapproved of the cost shift Madigan proposed.
"It's devastating for suburban areas and downstate," she said. "In tax cap counties it would be crushing."
Unlike Lauzen she said she supports the proposal to adjust COLA or health care after retirement.
"Legislation we are looking at now doesn't include the cost shift but includes options of either a COLA or health care after retirement," she said. "There's going to be lots of alternative."
As far as a summer session Hatcher said she would like to see it.
"I would hope that we travel back to Springfield just as soon as possible to address this, to flesh out more details and look at more options," she said. "This can't wait, not any longer."
With regard to the bond rating falling she said that there was some things that did get accomplished with health care and Medicaid reform.
"Clearly Illinois is starting to get back on the right track and Wall Street does pay attention to things like that," she said.
When asked for a positive that came out of the session Hatcher said it was the common acknowledgement from both sides of the aisle that things can't go on as they have and that some change has to take place.
"My number one goal obviously is to protect the residents of the 50th district," she said noting that there are three casinos in her district in Elgin, Aurora and Joliet.
She said she will always vote against gaming expansion because the competition would take jobs away from the existing casinos in her district.
"Those are just good, stable blue collar jobs," she said. "And believe me if there is a Chicago casino that opens, it will deal a death knell to all the gaming institutions in the Fox Valley."
With regard to the cigarette tax increase, Hatcher says she recalls that the state income tax was increased too and that didn't fix the state's budget woes.
"It only went to other bills, it didn't help the budget at all," she said. "When are we going to learn that raising taxes isn't the solution?"
Hatcher said she voted against the cigarette tax increase because she is philosophically opposed to raising taxes.
"For many people it's an easy tax," she said. "It isn't so much the tax as the philosophy (of raising taxes) that I voted against."
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