Illinois is without a spending plan, with less than a week until the new fiscal year begins. Democrats in the General Assembly approved one, but today Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed nearly the whole thing.
Schools will be able to open their doors this fall; on Wednesday, Rauner authorized funding them. But otherwise?
As it stands now, come next week, the state will be without legal authority to issue employees' paychecks, to send money to universities, to pay for the state police force, to pay for well, mostly everything else.
Rauner says he rejected the spending plan Democratic legislators approved late last month "in order to protect taxpayers from an unbalanced," "unconstitutional" budget.
He'd warned in May that this action could be coming: "I cannot sign a fake budget, a phony budget." Democrats admit their plan spends billions more than the state will collect in taxes, but they say the gap should be filled with a mix of cuts and new revenue.
Rauner, a Republican, says he'll only talk spending if lawmakers approve elements of his pro-business, anti-incumbent agenda.
