House budget impasse doesn’t worry senators

Budget negotiations in the Illinois House that have so far proved fruitless are not cause for concern with the clock ticking on the legislative session, some Senate Democrats said Friday.

Even with only six days left for the House and Senate to agree on a budget, Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, said the Senate won't be handcuffed into passing a budget it doesn't like because the two chambers have been in constant communication.

“We are having conversations around what we are ultimately going to pass as a budget,” Steans, who chairs one of the Senate budget committees, said Friday. She said the plan all along has been to let the House act first, and the Senate will stick to that.

What the eventual budget might look like, though, is still anybody's guess. House Democrats earlier this month approved a spending plan that assumed the temporary income tax increase would be made permanent.

That plan totaled more than $38 billion, far higher than the $34.5 billion the chamber previously agreed would be available to spend for next fiscal year. Republicans uniformly opposed that budget, and House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, eventually rescinded the plan.

Madigan said Thursday that a new budget would be crafted, one that did not rely on revenue from the tax increase. The House then took up an alternative “doomsday” budget Friday based on the $34.5 billion revenue estimate, but that plan was soundly rejected by a vote of 5-107.

The uncertainty in the House means the Senate is kept waiting, but Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, who chairs the other budget committee, said he's not worried either.

“We've been working on the budget since January. You think about eventualities. It wasn't just if one thing didn't happen, we would have been left with no other plan,” Kotowski said.

“So we're looking at what are the other opportunities that we have in order to make sure the state lives within the means already provided by taxpayers and to fund programs that are working and making a difference, and get rid of the ones that aren't,” he said.

But Mahomet Republican Sen. Chapin Rose, minority spokesman on one of the Senate budget committees, said Senate Democrats “have to be in the worst spot.”

“Once again, they're sitting there being dictated to by the House,” Rose said. “They've got to be incredibly frustrated on their side of the aisle that, once again, Speaker Madigan is dictating the outcomes.

“This has got to be the only state in America where you have a supermajority that is split right down the middle about what direction to go and as a consequence has no idea what it wants to do,” he said. “They have everything in this state, and they can't make a decision.”

Since acknowledging the plan to keep tax rates where they are is likely dead, Madigan has revived a revenue-generating proposal lawmakers had previously abandoned.

The plan, a penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugary beverages, would generate an estimated $600 million originally meant to fund health and obesity-prevention programs. It could see a committee hearing early this week.

Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said a deeper discussion on the revenue code, which “hasn't changed in 40 years in some cases,” is needed.

“What size of government do we want as a state? And how do we intend pay for that? We have a week and a day left of session, and that's still an open question,” Manar said. “That question is going to be answered (this) week.”

Manar acknowledged it would get harder and harder to answer that question the longer the House goes before sending a plan to the Senate, but he said he wasn't worried the House would take too long.

“I think at that point in time the Senate would act,” Manar said. “In my opinion, the Senate is not going to adjourn without passing a budget. I don't foresee a situation where the Senate adjourns without having done its constitutional responsibility of passing a budget.”

Contact Tobias Wall: toby.wall@sj-r.com, 782-3095, twitter.com/reTcWall.