Daley to Blago: WTF!?

By Kevin Robinson in News on Aug 16, 2007 1:00PM

Boy, you know it must be bad when Mayor Daley is calling you out on your legislative tactics. In remarks to the press yesterday, Daley called Blagojevich's plans to cut $500 million from the recently passed budget and impose a universal health care plan of his choosing legally questionable and "dangerous." "In short, I'm cutting pork and special-interest spending and, in its place, I'm using the legal authority that I have to expand health care to more than 500,000 people. I believe that's the right thing to do," Blagojevich told the Sun Times. Without actually specifying what any of that pork was, he claimed that his proposal was "as constitutional as it gets." House Speaker Michael Madigan called Blagojevich's plan "contrary to the Constitution," contending that the governor can cut spending with a veto, but cannot increase spending where the legislature had not appropriated any.

Senate President Emil Jones has vowed to stand with the governor on this proposal, and it remains to be seen if Senate Democrats will get to hold on to their pet projects for refusing to override Blago's veto. Mayor Mumbles had a few choice words about that, as well: “Something like this really kind of separates people….You’ve got Democrats and Republicans in the House. Once you start dividing them and divide the Senate, that is very, very dangerous in regards to — not only politics, but government.”

No shocker, both the Tribune and the Sun Times criticized the governor in editorials, while Carol Marin invoked the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson.

Besides Mayor Daley's critique of Blago's, er, methods, he pointed out the pending crisis with the CTA (as well as Metra and the rest of the RTA): “The issue of public transportation will not go away. ...Whatever they do, it’s not going to go away. Public transportation is going to be there."

Maybe this is why Dick Mell hates his son-in-law so much.