For Starters...

Here are a number of articles I've linked on Facebook, along with my quick take on its relevance to the state budget.

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/state-and-regional/illinois/state-workers-protest-cancellation-of-raises/article_1dc12dac-4ddf-11e1-b7a5-0019bb2963f4.html

The governor should never have granted 5% raises in the first place; I'm not saying that public employees aren't worthy, but when your state is broke it becomes imperative to hold the line on wage increases. Given how many state employees have been laid off or forced to take increased furlough days, the governor could easily have made the argument that wage increases only lead to more of the above.

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName&SessionId=84&GA=97&DocTypeId=HJR&DocNum=52&GAID=11&LegID=62604&SpecSess&Session

Yeah, this (making Cook County its own state) will never happen. Still, it highlights the gridlock that emerges when Chicago and the rest of Illinois simply don't see eye to eye. When lawmakers give up on passing real legislation that can cut/eliminate the deficit, you get dead-on-arrival proposals like this one instead.

http://wjbc.com/schools-fear-quinn-idea-to-shift-pension-costs/

This should have been the case from Day One. If universities and school districts had to manage their own pensions and were responsible for distributing payments to retirees, they would have been careful not to set rules that allowed educators' pensions to skyrocket by giving them a massive raise in their final year of work - a practice that is commonplace in Illinois. The mentality of "the teacher deserves it, and we're not the ones who have to pay their pension, so who cares about the cost?" would not have developed had these institutions had to figure out how to pay for these outsized pensions. I don't blame the educators for working the system to their advantage; this is a systemic problem.

Here's what I don't like, though. After all these years of mismanagement, Illinois cannot just dump millions in obligations onto the universities and school districts. They have not budgeted for this, nor have any mechanisms in place to increase their revenues to cover the anticipated outlays. If this passes in any form, there will be dire consequences for public education in Illinois.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-lake-barrington-dump-cleanup-20120204,0,5220000.story

I'm all for cleaning up a property that has been allowed to become a public safety hazard. What I don't like is that Illinois taxpayers are footing the bill to the tune of a $430,000 grant. Contractors were illegally dumping here for years. No sting operation to catch them in the act and make them reimburse the state for the cleanup? No effort to seize the property from its owner, who is claiming indigence? Since the funds were provided by a grant, I assume there is no expectation of the state being indemnified for the expenses incurred.