What Pat Quinn Really Thinks of Pay-to-Play
Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On
As if his statement to the press yesterday wasn’t enough, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn is leaving no doubt about his concerns with pay-to-play state contracting. Check out the animation and soundtrack added to his homepage:
http://www.standingupforillinois.org/
6 comments:
He's a little late with this.
This has been going on since you became Lt. Gov. of Illinois in 2002. Blago pulls your strings and everyone knows it.
So go back to sleep Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn!
Give it up, governor
I believe the time has come for Illinois voters to explore the option of amending the state's constitution to allow for a recall process for elected officials. At the very least for the governor.
As long-time readers of this site know, I have not been a big fan of Rod Blagojevich since he decided to raid state employees' pension funds (already among the worst-funded in the United States, and already the subject of legally mandated contribution plans to redress similar raids made decades ago that have the potential to suck up virtually all of the state's discretionary income long before they're done paying back what they borrowed and the compound interest thereon). I was praying that someone would come along and challenge him in the primary; when that didn't happen, I wrote in a vote for Pat Quinn because I will never, ever check a box, pull a lever, or blacken an oval next to Rod the Bod's name again.
And that was before he sent the state of Illinois into a budgetary tailspin with his shenanigans. Given that those shenanigans have now resulted in the longest legislative overtime session in state history, and given that those shenanigans have brought us to our third day without a state budget in place, just a week before the state has to make payroll and send out the first of its annual payments to school districts so they can cover expenses needed to make sure that they open on time, I think it is long past the time that Rod Blagojevich was shown the door. I'm not in the mood to wait around for a federal investigation to produce an indictment that would do it for us, and I'm not sanguine about the chances that the Democratically controlled state legislature would actually consider impeaching him, so starting a drive for a recall is my only available option.
I found it both amusing and frustrating as hell to wake up the other morning and hear on the news that this governor, of all people, had the brass balls to point a finger at the legislators and try to blame them for this mess that he started back in February. Here's a bit of free advice for you, governor: when your budget includes so many new spending programs that you have to propose a complete overhaul of the tax code to pay for them all, it's not a good idea to make that a surprise you spring on the General Assembly at your (perennially late) budget address in February. At least not if you want there to be any kind of a reasonable chance they will be able to present you with a budget bill before the constitutionally mandated deadline at the end of May.
And any rational person, when faced with a unanimous vote in the House against that very budget proposal, would have the good sense to realize that it was dead and ought to be buried. Not Blagojevich. He's still flogging that dead horse, and he appears not only willing but positively eager to ride it into the ground. Better yet, he's not only still trying to make his dead-on-arrival budget come back to life, he's threatening to veto any budget that the General Assembly sends to his desk if it doesn't read exactly the way he wants it to.
I'd like to see him try. Because I'm not nearly as sanguine as he and his flacks seem to be that if he does veto the budget and a government shutdown is the result, that voters are going to put all the blame for that situation on the legislators' shoulders. I think, in fact, it is far more likely that voters will put that blame squarely where it belongs--on Rod Blagojevich's back. He has been the obstructionist in this fight, as he has been virtually every year since he was first elected. He seems to believe that being elected governor means that he can do whatever he wants and no one dares say him no. Unfortunately for him and his pretensions to grandeur, that kind of government pretty much went out in 1776--long before Illinois ever became a state, and at a time when Blago's ancestors in Serbia were most likely suffering under that very system, as peasants under any or all of the rulers of Austria-Hungary, Russia, or the Ottoman Empire.
This is not the time to play brinksmanship, governor. Nor is it ever a good idea to play games with the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of state employees, vendors, and pensioners--to say nothing of the education of the next generation of Illinois leaders. You've lost this fight. For once in your miserable political career, do the right thing and admit it with as much grace as you can muster. Sign the budget that the General Assembly sends you, and let's get on with the business of Illinois with no further interruptions. Because if you don't, I guarantee you're going to have a hell of a time getting renominated for a third term--if you make it that long without being indicted or recalled.
"As long-time readers of this site know,"
Long-time readers of this site don't even know who you are.
Pat Quinn should be governor.
Milorat can pardon himself.
Chris Kelly, Tony Rezko, and Lon Monk should be in jail.
Give Joe Cini a pass--he is just a patsy.
This is the most corrupt and biggest joke of a governor in Illinois history.
Chris Kelly, Tony Rezko, Joe Cini and Lon Monk have been and still milking ILLINIOS DRY!
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