Civic Federation Hates On Quinn's Budget

The civic-minded Civic Foundation took a look at Gov. Quinn's proposed 2011 Illinois budget, and it didn't like what it saw. The non-partisan group's Institute for Illinois' Fiscal Sustainability today released a full analysis of the budget (PDF), and came to the conclusion that they strongly oppose the $52 billion operating budget "because it is unbalanced and does too little to address the State's fiscal crisis." The IIFS says the budget will do nothing but "make the State's financial condition worse" because it "borrows [$4.7 billion] to pay for operations while continuing to ignore the massive backlog of unpaid bills."

Other issues the IIFS opposes are the borrowing to pay pensions, and the expansion and re-authorization of the capital budget, including Quinn's recently enacted $26 billion Illinois Jobs Now! program which did not follow a "comprehensive capital improvement plan." It wasn't all doom and gloom, however -- the IIFS did praise Quinn for reducing state appropriations by $1.5 billion, as well as recent state employee pension and health insurance reforms.

The IIFS has previously expressed support for an income tax increase from 3% to 4% to help get Illinois out of its fiscal rut, but only if the state cut expenditures by $2.5 billion, and eliminated cuts to elementary and secondary education and reductions in the Medicaid program. A previous income tax hike failed to pass the Illinois House last year.