Edgar's Budget Advice To Rauner? Compromise

Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar has some advice for the man currently in the job – fellow Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Edgar says it might be time for Rauner to blink.

After more than five weeks working without a budget, Illinois leaders don't seem close to compromise. The two main players -- Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan -- both say they could work together to pass a budget, but …

Rauner says he won't compromise his five pro-business initiatives in his "Turnaround Agenda." Madigan, on the other hand, calls Rauner's positions "extreme."

"Some of these other issues are very important,” Edgar says, “but to me there's nothing more important at this point than to get the state back on sound fiscal ground with a good budget ... a budget that provides adequate funding, adequate revenues, that can suffice for several years."

Edgar says he doesn't see a way out of the Illinois budget standoff any time soon. But it hasn't been an all-out government shutdown. Edgar says that would have hastened a budget compromise.

"Part of the dilemma is, the courts have let them pay people without a budget,” Edgar said. “I mean, I just find that amazing, I just can't believe that.

“You know, then the Democrats sent part of the budget to the governor -- the education -- and he signed it,” the former two-term chief executive said, “so you took away a lot of the pressure points."

In 1991, a budget fight between Edgar and Madigan left state workers without paychecks for nearly three weeks. But recent lawsuits gave the state the authority to pay state workers, even without a formal budget in place.

Now that 80 percent of the state's budget has been spent via court order or long-standing law, Edgar says the state's neediest citizens will be squeezed out in the fight over the remaining state spending

Edgar and Madigan had several budget fights during the 1990s, but Edgar says it never went on this long.