Well you probably expected something on productivity, and yes you are going to get something on productivity. The effect that terrible leadership has on productivity...the productivity of legislators.
Many of you may or may not know about the scandalous situation that has recently occurred in Springfield, Illinois as the end of the term of the Illinois Legislature came to a conclusion. The primary leaders we are going to talk about are the President of the Illinois State Senate John Cullerton (D), the Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) and the Governor Pat Quinn (D).
For those of you not familiar with the situation, the legislature provided neither the broad pension changes needed in the state, nor the gambling expansion requested, nor the efforts to make Illinois the 13th state to approve marriage equality and so on and so forth. Madigan who has been in the House since 1971 was quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "Obviously, this is a session where we have not enjoyed a great deal of success." Cullerton was apparently keeping his head out of the line of fire!! At least he and his Senate colleagues had approved the Marriage Equality Bill earlier in the year.
Now what many of you may not know is that both legislative bodies have majorities that are Democratic, and they hold large majorities. The House is even held by a super majority of 71 Democratic seats out of 118. So there was no call for this mess to have even occurred. The Republicans were right when one of them was quoted in the same article by saying: "To me, it is an absolute damning failure of leadership that you have the largest majorities for one party in modern Illinois history and they can't come together and solve the biggest problem facing the state in a generation." said state Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican. What makes this particular blog so damn difficult to write is that I tend to vote for the most part as a Democrat and these guys are an embarrassment to me and my generation, as well as to others, no doubt.
While there is a whole host of issues such as marriage equality that should have been dealt with by one or both of these houses, the biggest failure is no doubt the lack of reform to the pension issue. Every day the taxpayers of Illinois pay $17 million dollars/day while we wait for this matter to be resolved; we hold the distinction of being the worst run state from a financial perspective of all of the states in the union because of the pension problem; we can't even pay the majority of our current accounts payable. That isn't to say that there are proposals. Madigan has his proposals which the unions assail. Cullerton has his proposal which effectively they love by comparison. Neither it appears will give ground on their proposal, so the taxpayers of Illinois get screwed by these leaders.
There is an old Irish adage:
"When you come upon a wall,
throw your hat over it,
and then go get your hat."
Seems that these gentlemen (if you can call them that) reached the brick wall but were unable, incapable or not smart enough to throw their hat over the wall and then go get it and find some way to compromise and get this matter resolved. This controversy just continues draining the taxpayer of more and more money each and every day. Perhaps the governor should have taken them into a room, locked the door, chained them to the table and told them no one was leaving until we had a workable solution to this and the other pending matters before the legislature. Now that would be leadership!!!
Many of you may or may not know about the scandalous situation that has recently occurred in Springfield, Illinois as the end of the term of the Illinois Legislature came to a conclusion. The primary leaders we are going to talk about are the President of the Illinois State Senate John Cullerton (D), the Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) and the Governor Pat Quinn (D).
For those of you not familiar with the situation, the legislature provided neither the broad pension changes needed in the state, nor the gambling expansion requested, nor the efforts to make Illinois the 13th state to approve marriage equality and so on and so forth. Madigan who has been in the House since 1971 was quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "Obviously, this is a session where we have not enjoyed a great deal of success." Cullerton was apparently keeping his head out of the line of fire!! At least he and his Senate colleagues had approved the Marriage Equality Bill earlier in the year.
Now what many of you may not know is that both legislative bodies have majorities that are Democratic, and they hold large majorities. The House is even held by a super majority of 71 Democratic seats out of 118. So there was no call for this mess to have even occurred. The Republicans were right when one of them was quoted in the same article by saying: "To me, it is an absolute damning failure of leadership that you have the largest majorities for one party in modern Illinois history and they can't come together and solve the biggest problem facing the state in a generation." said state Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican. What makes this particular blog so damn difficult to write is that I tend to vote for the most part as a Democrat and these guys are an embarrassment to me and my generation, as well as to others, no doubt.
While there is a whole host of issues such as marriage equality that should have been dealt with by one or both of these houses, the biggest failure is no doubt the lack of reform to the pension issue. Every day the taxpayers of Illinois pay $17 million dollars/day while we wait for this matter to be resolved; we hold the distinction of being the worst run state from a financial perspective of all of the states in the union because of the pension problem; we can't even pay the majority of our current accounts payable. That isn't to say that there are proposals. Madigan has his proposals which the unions assail. Cullerton has his proposal which effectively they love by comparison. Neither it appears will give ground on their proposal, so the taxpayers of Illinois get screwed by these leaders.
There is an old Irish adage:
"When you come upon a wall,
throw your hat over it,
and then go get your hat."
Seems that these gentlemen (if you can call them that) reached the brick wall but were unable, incapable or not smart enough to throw their hat over the wall and then go get it and find some way to compromise and get this matter resolved. This controversy just continues draining the taxpayer of more and more money each and every day. Perhaps the governor should have taken them into a room, locked the door, chained them to the table and told them no one was leaving until we had a workable solution to this and the other pending matters before the legislature. Now that would be leadership!!!
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