Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune- August 26, 2007
So legislators pushed him aside and it took some time, but they finally made a deal on spending. Now the outcast governor has asserted himself on the budget by vetoing $463 million in spending.
Take a look at some of what he cut:
- Money for Operation CeaseFire, the immensely successful program that has helped Chicago dramatically reduce its murder rate.
- Money to fight HIV, sickle-cell anemia. Alzheimer's disease and pandemic flu.
- Money to give a modest raise to the low-paid people who care for the developmentally disabled in non-profit community homes.
That last one is the most galling. The governor approved pay raises of more than 13 percent for himself and the other constitutional officers, but he slashed funds for the 2.5 percent raises for the front-line workers in homes for the disabled. They'll only get 1.5 percent -- their first increase in three years.
The governor makes $150,691 a year. The average caregiver for the disabled makes $18,700 a year. The governor's raise is more than the average worker makes in a year. Blagojevich says he won't take his raise. That's big of him.
His vetoes weren't all bad decisions. He cut some of the pet projects that legislators can't resist lumping into the budget each year. But even then he acted in cynical fashion. He let stand the pet projects of the legislators whose help he needs the most.
Let's remember this is the governor who campaigned in 2002 as a pork-buster. And who then embraced pork spending when it helped him. And who now apparently fashions himself as a pork-buster again -- at least the pork that doesn't suit his purposes.
Apparently he will get his way, because Senate President Emil Jones says he won't let the Senate override the governor's vetoes.
So let's be clear on this. Emil Jones will be responsible for cutting HIV funding, cutting violence prevention money, cutting raises for workers who make $18,700 a year. Emil Jones, you will wear the jacket for that as much as Blagojevich does.
And it's not that Blagojevich intends to save this money. He intends to steer this money into health-care spending that the legislature pointedly did not approve. He's inviting a lawsuit and more acrimony. These days, he seems to thrive on acrimony.
This is no way to run a state. This is as contemptuous as it gets.
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