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Rauner, Democrats Hold 1st Meeting In Months On State Budget

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislative leaders held a rare meeting Tuesday on the elusive Illinois budget, a summit featuring familiar speeches during the public portion before they reconvened in private to discuss how to end a stalemate now in its sixth month.

During the opening portion of the meeting, which was streamed online, the Republican executive urged the Democrat-led General Assembly to take up his conservative, pro-business agenda before talking dollars and cents. Leaders from both parties sniped over who's to blame for the financial morass but mostly stuck to the script they've followed since July 1, when the new budget was to have taken effect.

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan spoke up about the need to raise taxes and cut spending to fix the woeful financial situation and argued against Rauner's plan for cost-cutting measures for businesses to expand and produce more natural revenue. Rauner wants to restrict workers' compensation and liability lawsuit payouts and give local governments more control over collective bargaining with labor unions. Madigan argues those changes will hurt middle-class families.

"This has been going on for decades," Rauner said of the fiscal mess. "This is not new, and if we don't take on the structural causes of those problem, if all we do is raise taxes and make a couple of modest cuts, we'll still chase our tail. We'll keep raising taxes, have more deficit spending, and here's the bottom line — we have fewer jobs in Illinois today than we had 16 years ago and in the meantime, government spending has gone through the roof."

Madigan pointed out that without a budget, Rauner is allowing spending to exceed the amount of revenue the state will take in this year. Money continues to be paid out under federal court orders requiring certain services to continue.

"Not having a budget is not very business-friendly," Chicago Democratic Senate President John Cullerton added.

Rauner's proposed changes don't play well in a state that's still largely Democratic, and party leaders say Rauner's agenda isn't related to the budget and should be discussed separately. His most vocal critic has been Madigan, who wants to raise taxes and cut spending to get a balanced budget. He's contended since summer that Rauner is taking "extreme" positions on workers compensation and lawsuit damages which, if implemented, could hurt working-class families.

"Illinois is awash in debt ... at a time when you, governor, have committed to spend over 100 percent of the amount of money you estimate will be available for this budget year," Madigan said. "I don't feel we can simply cut our way out of the budget deficit problem. "

Having not congregated in the same room since May, good government groups wrote an open letter in October offering to host a sit-down. Madigan jumped aboard and suggested it be public. When Rauner finally agreed, he took over planning and ultimately, decided each of the four leaders and he would make opening remarks for public consumption, then close the door on private budget negotiations.

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