Is Illinois Heading for Another Budget Showdown?

Who knows? Could anyone have predicted the mess that happened last spring? It seems that this time around Governor Blagojevich might not be as interested in strutting his testicular virility by getting into a huge pissing match with legislators.

The General Assembly sent the governor a budget over the weekend, but he's not happy. Threatening a veto, he said that the budget is “out of balance, out of whack,” at a press conference yesterday afternoon, and called on state legislators to meet later this week to keep working on the budget. Pointing out that the state constitution requires a balanced budget, “this legislative process ought to continue," he said. Blagojevich also called on legislators to pass what he termed a "jobs bill" - a new public works package.

That bill, which would finance a massive capital spending program by creating three new casinos and converting Illinois horse racing facilities into slot machine casinos, is opposed by House Speaker Mike Madigan. Claiming that a majority of House members oppose expanded gambling in the state, Madigan told CBS2's Mike Flannery that "the problem here is there are just too many people in the legislature who think that you can have a construction program at a time when there's a shortage of money in the treasury, and do it where there's no pain." Madigan favors raising the state income tax instead. "I'm against that," Blagojevich said, "I want to ease their pain and I want to stimulate our economy without raising taxes on the people by using assets the state has."

In the meantime, Madigan has announced that he will no longer meet the governor behind closed doors to negotiate, saying that those meetings have been "non-productive."