. . . not if you want to get paid, that is.
Illinois has not had a budget for 8 months and counting.
Unpaid bills pile up having now reached a record $10 billion to $12 billion according to state comptroller Leslie Geissler Munger.
Vendors are furious. One vendor has lost 40% of staff that once numbered 1,000 because it has not made its payroll for 14 weeks.
. . .
- Unpaid: $2 million to Ashley’s Quality Care.
- Refused: A Department of Human Services rehabilitation counselor in Downers Grove sought a taxi for a client and received an email that “all service is on hold due to non-payment.”
- Paid: A New Jersey landlord threatened to evict Illinois Revenue Department tax auditors from their rented home in that state unless he received five months’ rent totaling $37,936.20. The bill was paid, I suspect illegally without a budget.
- Unpaid: Water and sewer bill at the 1848 Mt. Pulaski Courthouse.
- Refused & Unpaid: An Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission arbitrator’s personalized date-stamp broke, but it wasn’t replaced because the supplier was awaiting $511.06 that was past due.
- Refused: Springfield store refuses to sell all-purpose Fabuloso Cleaner for the Secretary of State’s office.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s $10 billion to $12 billion in unpaid bills.
There's more at the link.
The problem is the dispute between the Governor and the legislature over how to fund state expenditure. We noted in August last year that lottery winners were no longer being paid automatically, due to the same problem. As I pointed out at the time:
The budget impasse in Illinois is because the Democratic Party-controlled legislature wants to continue to borrow billions upon billions of dollars to fund entitlement and social spending, while the Governor wants to curtail borrowing and live within the state's means.
As far as I'm concerned, the Governor is doing the right thing by sticking to his guns and refusing to cave in to the legislature's pressure tactics. Unfortunately, that means businesses waiting for payment will just have to go on waiting . . . until they go bankrupt, if necessary. I'd say the easier solution is to simply refuse to do business with the state of Illinois unless it's on a cash-on-delivery basis.
Peter
10 comments:
This is what's coming to every democratically controlled city and state in the US.
As Reagan said: "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
Rauner is the first REAL opposition Madigan has ever had. All the rest of the governors we've had were part of the combine. I've been eharing from sources that it is driving Madigan nuts that Rauner has not caved in and he's not paying any political price whatsoever for it. The press has been trying to drum up anti-Rauner mobs with little success. so far. I'm waiting for the democrats to fall back on a huge rent-a-mob of bussed in southside Chicago welfare recipients.
I live in Il. Heard on the radio the other day that spending this year is 90% of last year's spending. So, even without a budget, they are still managing to spend most everything they wanted.
Here in Pa, the opposite. The new Guv wants a huge round of tax and spend, while the legislature is nixing new taxes. No budget since... well.... we got a new guv.
In a truly sound financial move, the Chicago School Board has been trying to sell bonds so it can pay its operating expenses. They wound up having to offer something like 8.75%, which is junk bond territory and the offering wasn't fully subscribed.
At least I have a front row seat for the upcoming crash.......
It's amazing how something as simple as the concept that you cannot borrow your way to prosperity is beyond the ruling class. As far as I'm concerned, anyone without a firm plan to balance and maintain a balanced budget should be ineligible for ANY municipal, state, or federal position, be it elected, appointed, or run-of-the-mill hire.
Nothing new here. I was the treasurer for a United Way agency that had several contracts with the state of Illinois. I had to go to a bank to get a line of credit to finance the A/R from the state. Illinois was late a minimum of 8 months. When was this you ask? In the early 70's.
Rolf - heard interesting stats Sunday morning on a financial radio show I listen to on Chicago's WLS radio; only 20 of the 50 states require any sort of high school economics class. Only 16 of the 20 have any sort of testing requirement on those classes. You begin to see where all these young dummies that support Bernie come from... The question is, what about all the older folks that are supporting him? (and Hillary, and... let's face it, a lot of Republicans...) Didn't the education system in the past, before it became completely corrupted by federal progressivism, require actual education on economics? I escaped from high school in 93, and up to that point at least, they were still teaching economics and personal finance... and I admit, I was an enthusiastic student - I wanted a successful financial life. It's been a tough go since then, as what used to pass for economic guidelines has been shoved off in the rubbish heap and replaced with a seeming free-for-all of zero interest environment, bailouts, no-equity lending and on and on and on...
Most of Illinois is conservative rural and small town farming communities. Good folks.
But they have this giant festering sore on their backs called Cook County, aka Chicago and its environs.
The good people living "downstate" drive on gravel roads. run church socials and bake sales to pay for essential services, while Chicago builds yet another expressway or edifice to house more redundant administrators of social programs.
If they could figure out a way to pull it off the majority of downstaters would gladly dig a moat separating Cook county from the rest of the state and make them their own island state out in lake Michigan.
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