We can no longer talk of 'tough choices'
“You see what is happening in Greece... in Ireland ... in Spain now. We are left with nothing but tough choices.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger, May 16, 2010
“This is a time to honestly assess our financial condition and make the tough choices.” — Jerry Brown, Jan. 3, 2011
“I presented my budget ... with a clear message: When it comes to making cuts, we have to make tough choices ...” — Pat Quinn, July 7, 2009
No doubt, you're getting the theme here. There is something to consider in Illinois as California's populist “governator” on Monday handed the reins of power back to the man Mike Royko once dubbed “Governor Moonbeam.”
And that is that it is a lot easier to identify difficult choices than to make them. Schwarzenegger entered California government in 2004 on promises of making the hard decisions that would pull California out of a deficit variously pegged at anywhere between $10 billion and $38 billion. After six difficult years, made more so by the worst national economy since the Great Depression, Schwarzenegger left office with armloads of lucrative job offers while his state still wallowed in a $28 billion budget shortfall with a double-digit unemployment rate.
His successor Jerry Brown intoned the theme of “tough choices” in his inaugural address Monday, but one has to wonder to what extent he or his legislature has the will to actually make them. After all, it was but a year ago, almost to the day, when Schwarzenegger said of cuts in his State of the State address, “What can we say at this point except the truth? That we have no choice.”
Illinois' deficit, by the way, is generally estimated at around $13 billion, a figure that seems to swell by the month. Outgoing Comptroller Dan Hynes says it will be $15 billion by summer.
So, the task facing Illinois lawmakers between now and Jan. 12 is to define once and for all what “tough choices” mean in practical terms, and then to make them. Any reasonable person recognizes that the final solution must be some combination of spending cuts and revenue increases. But we emphasize, again, that the latter — at least as they apply to borrowing and tax hikes — should not even reach the stage of soft breath until every nickel of government waste and excess has been identified and cleared out.
Moody's Investor Service may have stated the challenge facing Illinois lawmakers most succinctly last week when it criticized their “chronic unwillingness to confront a long-term, structural budget deficit.” Gov. Quinn saw the same thing in July 2009, but sadly that “chronic unwillingness” continues to plague state government.
As the governor and lawmakers struggle through the admittedly unpleasant debates of the next eight days, they do well to keep the Moody's phrase in mind at all times — and to realize that this is no longer the time to lament tough choices, but to make them.