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Stop bickering and get to work!

Saturday, May 3, 2008 9:16 PM CDT

The issue: Political bickering in Springfield may be entertaining, but the endless quibbling takes attention away from a much-needed capital construction program and the creation of a workable state budget. Our opinion: It's time to focus entirely on a capital bill and a new state budget and to forget less-important and distracting ideas such as 24/7 pari-mutuel wagering, among other things.

Our state badly needs a capital construction program and time is running short for the creation of a new state budget. But the rhetoric we're hearing from Springfield doesn't give anyone reason to feel encouraged.

Here's a sampling of recent, published dialogue from and about the top leaders in Springfield, the so-called political "best."

"For a long time, this state has been without effective leadership out of the executive's office. The citizens of Illinois have endured two years of finger-pointing and one-upmanship. People are concerned about a state whose economy is slowing, whose budget is coming apart, whose people are losing jobs and are fearful of economic security. We don't need to be thrown into the middle of a who's-to-blame game."

That came from Comptroller Dan Hynes.

Here's another:

"We have a chance to do what we want to do, and that's impeach the governor of Illinois."

That came from East Moline Sen. Mike Jacobs.

And finally:

"I need a pay raise. I need a pay raise."

The last comment is a head-shaker. It came from one of our elected leaders, state Senate President Emil Jones. He boldly proclaimed his support for legislative pay raises in excess of 10 percent.

Sure, go back and read that again. Pay raises for the very state officials who barely pieced together a state budget last year and failed - for the eighth year in a row - to fashion a capital construction program.

The political climate in Springfield is so poisoned that just about every move by one of the leaders appears to be retributive. Everyone's had enough.

There is less than a month before the scheduled adjournment of the spring legislative session and our band of lawmakers are nowhere close to fashioning a new budget, let alone finishing the more-important capital works bill.

Enough debate about recall. Enough debate about 24-hour horse-racing wagering statewide. Enough debate about pay raises.

Given the steady prosecution testimony in the Tony Rezko fraud trial in Chicago highlighting Gov. Rod Blagojevich's extraordinary ability to raise campaign cash, it's no wonder our state's top elected official isn't universally trusted.

But he, House Speaker Mike Madigan and Jones must find a way - with or without the help of minority leaders Sen. Frank Watson and Rep. Tom Cross - to focus and forge a workable budget plan and a capital spending measure.

Perhaps taking everything else off the table could help. There are a few reasonable revenue sources already suggested that would make such goals reachable, including a measure of gaming expansion.

And, as we've already said, we're not as closed-minded as our governor to the notion of some level of income tax increase. The idea of a tiered progressive tax that seeks more from those who earn more is worthy of discussion. Many of our neighboring states already use varying income tax brackets.

There are tough decisions to make.

Our leaders need to be tough enough to set aside petty personal differences and get the job done.

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