With just two weeks remaining in the spring legislative session, Illinois politicians appear to be positioning themselves to blame each other for the failure to pass a budget. Illinois has gone nearly two years without a real budget because Gov. Bruce Rauner refused to negotiate one until Democrats also took up his political and economic agenda.
Democrats, like House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie of Chicago, now say they’re willing to take up Rauner’s goal of improving the state’s economy. But they’ve got very different ideas about how to do that.
“A healthy economy needs more than just cutting workers’ comp benefits… we need to help lift up the middle class.”
The thing is, Currie’s Democratic proposals don’t fit Rauner’s Republican agenda. That’s led Republicans to counter that Democrats are just trying to run out the clock on the last two weeks of session.