Madigan's April 13 floor speech on Rauner's budget crisis

Verbatim excerpts:

... Every other governor that I have worked with has negotiated with the General Assembly in good faith to help the people of Illinois and to insure that the people of our state would not needlessly suffer.

The fact is the current budget crisis was completely avoidable. While this crisis was avoidable, Governor Rauner has refused to put an end to the crisis. Some of his remarks in recent years clearly indicate this has been his plan from the very beginning.

Source: http://capitolfax.com/2016/04/13/madigan-rauners-impasse-is-a-feature-not-a-bug/

Under comments:

- Lakeview J - Wednesday, Apr 13, 16 @ 9:50 am:

If you want to see how strong the governor has made the Speaker’s position in the Democratic caucus, watch who is among the first to shake his hand after the standing ovation. Rep. Will Guzzardi, who just two short years ago was on the receiving end of the full Madigan treatment.

Blueroomstream has it at http://livestream.com/blueroomstream/events/5138704 linked to Capitol Fax of that date.

And the conservative blog Illinois Review has a transcript, for reasons that are obscure to me since you'd think it undercuts their editorial policy, at

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2016/04/speaker-madigans-explanation-as-to-why-illinois-budget-remains-stalled.html

Over 30 years, I have worked with six governors from both political parties – twice as many Republicans as Democrats. We didn’t always agree on the issues. We didn’t always agree on the best approach to passing the state government. I had differences of opinion with all the governors I’ve worked with, including governors of my own party.

And let me repeat that – including governors of my own party. Many of you will recall the very strong differences I had with former Governor Rod Blagojevich.

However, we found a way to compromise. My record over the years is one of compromise. Regardless of the governor or his political party, to pass a budget that does not withhold the services that the people of Illinois depend upon. It is my openness to compromise that I stated more than a year ago, and why I continue to believe that to solve the state budget deficit, we must take a balanced approach.

* * *

The fact is the current budget crisis was completely avoidable. While this crisis was avoidable, Governor Rauner has refused to put an end to the crisis. Some of his remarks in recent years clearly indicate this has been his plan from the very beginning.

At the Tazewell County’s Lincoln Day Dinner in March 2013, Governor Rauner said, and I quote, “Even if the Democrats got a major majority against us, you know what? They can’t stop us. They won’t stop me if I want to dramatically spend less. You need the legislature if you want to spend more. If you want to spend less, they can’t stop me. And I apologize, we may have to go through rough times. If we have to do what Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers, if we sort of have to do a do-over and shut things down for a little while …” – like university and social service providers – “that’s what we’re going to do.”

My view of the important role of state government, which I have argued, stands in stark contrast with Governor Rauner’s view of the role of state government as shown through his comments, has not changed since I first took office.