Rauner Slams Quinn For Leaving Behind "Fundamentally Dishonest" Budget
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner had nothing but scorn for his predecessor on Friday, when he took questions from reporters about the transition process during his first weeks in office.
To hear Rauner tell it, his administration has been spending a lot of time trying to fix problems left behind by former Gov. Pat Quinn, who he said was dishonest.
He slammed the state budget he inherited from Quinn, saying Quinn used "fundamentally dishonest" revenue projections he knew weren't real, in an effort to get reelected.
"They made up some numbers to get through the election cycle, because they didn't want to be honest about whether they wanted to push a tax hike," Rauner said. "It's actually unconstitutional to do what he did."
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He also criticized Quinn's handling of the legalization of medical marijuana in Illinois. Even though Quinn received recommendations on which businesses should get licenses to grow and sell marijuana before he left office earlier this month, he did not act on them, leaving the entire program in limbo.
The Quinn administration had said it would issue the licenses by the end of 2014, he did not act before Rauner took office, instead saying that agencies in charge of evaluating applications still had more work to do.
Emails and other documents released to the Associated Press show the agencies had made recommendations to Quinn and were ready to award many of the licenses, having evaluated and scored 18 businesses to grow medical marijuana and 56 retailers to sell it.
Some dispensary applicants with known political ties or other complications had high scores but were disqualified or put on hold at some point in the process. For example, one dispensary application from a strip club owner in Chicago was marked "hold" and the man's name.
A spokesman for the former governor, George Sweeney, said in an emailed statement that the Quinn administration had made "substantial progress" in evaluating the applications, but more work was necessary, so Quinn decided to turn it over to Rauner for "proper review."
"Let's talk about this medical marijuana mess that Governor Quinn created, and then ran away from," Rauner said.
He accused Quinn of making arbitrary decisions about disqualifying applicants, without regard for the law. Rauner said he's still working on reviewing medical marijuana license applications.
As for staff salaries that are significantly higher than under the Quinn administration, even though last week he suggested high state salaries helped increase the state's unpaid debt, Rauner had no apologies for what he's paying his top aides.
"We've got the most talented team of leaders ever assembled to turn around the state government," he said. "We've got superstars, and our budget, our spending inside the administration, in the governor's office, will be lower than Quinn's."
Rauner said some of his administration hires from the private sector were taking pay cuts to work in state government.
The Associated Press found annual salaries of ten top staffers in Rauner's administration outpace those of comparable aides Quinn by roughly $380,000 -- or 36 percent.
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