Budget Crisis Resolved, Sort Of, Maybe, Not Really

Blagojevich edits the budget.

"As I said when the legislature passed this budget - it leaves a lot of important business unfinished. While I'm pleased that we're making a record investment in education, families across the state are still being priced out of health coverage and don't have a way to see a doctor when they need to. A budget should reflect the priorities of the people who elected us to make their lives better. That's why I'm removing almost $500 million in special pet projects and other spending that we simply can't afford. And at the same time, we're preparing new rules and administrative changes that will give half-a-million Illinoisans access to healthcare. 250,000 women in Illinois will be able to get screened and treated for breast and cervical cancer. These changes improve the budget that lawmakers sent me. But there's more to be done. I look forward to working with them on a capital bill to provide funding for mass transit, and aging infrastructure like roads and bridges," said Gov. Blagojevich.

So, basically, spending that Illinois can't afford is being removed, and more spending it can't afford is being added.

Lots of the cuts are actually good, but unfortunately, some of the "pork" being cut is, er, not all that porky. For example, Medicaid. Then there are the local agencies that won't be getting their usual funding.

Blagojevich cut about 75% of $200,000,000 in "member initiative" spending, leading to talks of a veto override, but Senate majority leader Emil Jones has promised to try to block any override. Naturally, this leads to accusations that Blagojevich cut a deal and protected Jones' pork.

"We don't exactly trust the governor's press release to tell us the truth," said state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro.

"The trust that has been established since 1818 has kind of been broken by this group," he said.

Mistrust is well founded:

After reviewing the budget, Luechtefeld said none of Jones' requested initiative funding was removed. The 12 members of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules also kept all their requested money, he said. The JCAR members will decide on the health care proposal Blagojevich hopes to start.

I foresee another year in which the State of Illinois ends up with hopelessly cooked books, runs out of money early and has to rob emergency funds to pretend to make ends meet.

Blagojevich, Bringer of Poor

How screwed up is the economy of Illinois? Pretty screwed up.

As it turns out, however, the governor actually is driving jobs out of the state. Literally.

According to documents, the Illinois Department of Human Services, which is under Blagojevich's control, has inked a deal with a company to take an estimated 65 welfare recipients to jobs at a factory in Missouri.

In other words, the job market in parts of this state is so wretched, we've got to pay someone to truck people across state lines so they can try to earn a living.

As the state's Mad Max factor continues to increase, this is easily equally troubling: Back a few months ago, when this blog was largely inactive, a major crisis erupted in Illinois as a horrifying increase in electric rates benighted the land, leaving little old ladies sitting in the cold and dark, terrified of further increasing their three-figure utility bills. Threats were made, utility companies were accused of misleading state legislators on what the package they sought to have approved would actually do, Senate majority leader Emil Jones was accused of helping them, House Speaker Michael Madigan proposed socializing electricity, and legislators, under siege from their constituents, called an emergency Committee of the Whole at which, if I recall correctly, somebody pulled the fire alarm.

Months later, something was finally done.

The problem? Blagojevich refuses to sign it, arguing that he potentially can "make it better" if he reviews it thoroughly.

In fact, Blagojevich seems to be trying to make everything "better", since of the 700 bills the legislature has passed and sent to him this year, he had, as of the 10th of August, only signed 31 of them. It appears that politically beneficial bills, like abolishing the processing of horse meat for food (something that rarely happened anyway), get shot right through, but doing any actual work is off the table. (Congressional Democrats seem to be infected with a similar disease.)

That's ironic, because Blagojevich, noted for accusing legislators of not doing their jobs, is now giving them a raise, breaking a campaign promise and publicly declaring that his intention is to bribe them into passing his unfeasible, insane budget.

But even in his explanation, Blagojevich tried to cast legislators as venal money-grabbers rather than social-policy progressives, a move that ratcheted up tensions in the already poisonous political atmosphere of a record legislative overtime nearly 12 weeks old.

"I want to say this in a nice way, but that [salary increase] seems to be, among many legislators, the single biggest priority for them," Blagojevich said. "And I ... felt that if that's so important to them, this is what really motivates their priorities, then maybe if I respect their priorities, maybe they'll respect the priority I have, which is providing health care to families."

Blagojevich is the victim here. Do you feel his pain?

In any case, you read that right: Illinois still has no budget.

To repeat, Illinois has a state apple, but no budget.

In Blagojevich's defense, the recognition of an Official Fruit of State is a better idea than his previous scheme to raise operating funds for the state, which would've involved accepting paid sponsorships for things like official state credit cards and official state soft drinks. (Blagojevich mistakenly thought that companies would want to associate with his "brand".) The apple, however, was not Blagojevich's idea. Rather, it was brought to the legislature by a class of elementary school children with no intention of making cash off the idea.

I digress. The legislature sent a budget to Blagojevich over a week ago, ignoring his priorities and, allegedly, emphasizing their own. Blagojevich is now trying to figure out how to make it go away, rather than just signing it to bring this nonsense to an end, nonsense that has resulted in school funds not getting disbursed and widows of state troopers not getting their survivor-benefits checks.

In fact, when the woman in question, Karla Miller, called Blagojevich's office to try to get her problem straightened out, a very rude man hung up on her:

"He was very flippant and just said, you know, we're all worried about the budget and we'll get it fixed and that kind of thing," she said. "He started to get a little testy with me, and I started to get a little testy back, and then he hung up on me."

Nobody, it seems, can understand how a state run by people from the same corner of the same state, affiliated with the same wing of the same party, people so tightly associated that it'd be illegal for some of them to marry into each other's families, can get nothing done, but that's exactly what's happening.

On a day usually devoted to party unity -- "Governor's Day" at the State Fair -- the state comptroller, treasurer and lieutenant governor all condemned the Democratic bickering that has left Illinois without a budget for two weeks.

The attorney general scolded the governor for not helping people struggling to pay electricity bills. The House speaker accused the governor of unconstitutional actions, and was in turn accused of betraying fellow Democrats.

"It's embarrassing. It's not the way people envision their leaders acting," Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias said after a Democratic rally at the State Fair. "I think the public is getting sick and tired of this."

But Blagojevich said he doesn't owe the public an apology as he pushes to expand government health programs.

His latest tactic is a threat to increase health spending by $500 million without legislative permission. Lawmakers sent him a budget without the new health programs he wants, but Blagojevich says he can spend the money anyway.

The bickering is so ridiculous that at one point, Blagojevich threatened legal action against lawmakers for holding a special session at the wrong time of day, leading Chicago Democrat Joe Lyons to call Blagojevich "a madman" and "insane".

Indeed he is, and lost in the midst of all this is letter-writing Mount Carroll resident Gerald Bork, a Blagojevich fan who is perplexed by the public disgust, aware that Blagojevich ran and was elected as a reformer, but apparently unaware that it was a sham, that he is just as corrupt as his predecessor, and that he only got reelected because his opponent was no better of a candidate than he is:

Almost constantly, I am hearing nothing but criticism of Governor Blagojevich. Why?

Well, Mr. Bork, in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth...

Mr. Unpopular

Evil continues to be a dominant trend in Illinois politics, as Rod Blagojevich increases his smug levels.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is rejecting warnings that Illinois must have a budget in place by Wednesday to avoid financial harm to state employees and schools waiting for government checks.

The Democratic governor said Monday that Aug. 8 is ''an arbitrary date. ... It's no different from today, it's no different from yesterday and it's no different from August the 9th.''

Comptroller Dan Hynes, however, says his office can't begin processing checks for employees if a budget isn't in place on Wednesday. That means 4,900 employees might not get paid on time, and more would be affected if the budget stalemate drags on.

''Each and every day it gets worse and worse,'' said Hynes, a Chicago Democrat.

The same applies to $170 million in school aid that is supposed to go out on Friday, although Blagojevich announced Monday that the state will help schools by offering interest-free loans.

Blagojevich is sticking by his threat to reject a budget unless it meets his standards on education, health care and construction spending.

Blagojevich was obviously relieved to be surrounded by a friendly crowd. The governor said he was jogging in Springfield recently and passed a man who shouted, '''Hey, governor, you ... ' and I better not say the next word but it rhymes with luck. So it's nice to be here with all of you.''

A Springfield credit union is offering state employees no-interest loans if this doesn't get straightened out, and a vote is scheduled tomorrow on a budget proposal, though it carries no guarantee that it won't end up Blagojevetoed.

The Blagojevich Effect

Remember those flu vaccines that Governor Blagojevich bought from European suppliers to cover the "shortage" (a media-manufactured illusion, since we ended the season with 4.5 million vaccinations left), but then found he couldn't legally import into the United States? Remember how he ended up getting the state sued when other state officials refused to write a check to cover Blagojevich's renegade, irresponsible stunt, even as the vaccinations expired in European freezers?

Leave it to Rod, the Lord of the Gaffe, to nearly turn a bad situation into an international incident involving a major Islamic nation.

Blagojevich announced his solution in December 2005 -- the state would donate the medicine to Pakistan, which was then reeling from an earthquake that had killed 80,000 and left millions homeless.

"We are in a unique position to help thousands of Pakistanis who are struggling to recover from a terrible tragedy," Blagojevich said in a statement.

It turns out, Pakistani officials say, the vaccines never helped anyone.

There's just one catch: Blagojevich never told the Pakistanis that the vaccines were expired. When they found out, they were not too happy.

Instead, health authorities in Pakistan crushed and burned the half-million doses because they wouldn't give their people an expired vaccine, according to interviews and government records.

Some sources claimed that not all the vaccine was destroyed and that a portion found its way onto the black market. Exhaustive attempts by the Tribune to confirm this were unsuccessful. After several weeks of repeated requests by the Tribune, Pakistani officials turned over records documenting destruction of the medicine.

The vaccine, received in shipments weighing nearly 9 tons, was refrigerated for months before being destroyed in November 2006, the records show.

Pakistani health officials said they accepted the inoculations not knowing they had expired months earlier. They ultimately rejected the assurances of the European distributor, Ecosse Hospital Products Ltd., that the vaccines were independently tested and still potent.

"After all, human beings are equal," said retired Lt. Gen. Farooq Ahmad Khan, who ran the Federal Relief Cell that coordinated earthquake relief in the first five months after the disaster. "They are not guinea pigs. And vaccines, if they are not good in one country, they should not be usable in another country."

The Pakistan government didn't publicize the destruction of the vaccines, in part, to preserve good relations with an ally.

"Remember, the vaccine was sent by the Americans," said a Pakistani government source speaking on the condition on anonymity. "You could get into trouble with diplomatic relations between the two countries."

The Pakistanis probably don't realize who Blagojevich is. Nobody's going to burn any Dixie Chicks CDs over him.

"This was a bad deal from the beginning," said [Comptroller] Hynes, who was surprised when told the vaccines were destroyed. "I just want to make sure that Illinois taxpayers aren't the ones holding the bag."

The state auditor general later blasted the governor's effort as an unlawful attempt to bypass regulators.

On Dec. 30, as the first shipment arrived, Blagojevich announced the donations in a news release, saying he hoped the vaccines "will be put to use to protect people who were left homeless, weak and vulnerable after the devastating earthquake and now are in dire need of protection from influenza this winter."

He also included a quote from the Pakistani consul general in Chicago, praising "Gov. Blagojevich's concern for the earthquake victims in Pakistan as well as the Pakistani-Americans who have been tragically touched through loss of family and friends.

"Any effort to help Pakistan in its hour of need is welcome."

But a Jan. 9, 2006, e-mail obtained by the Tribune shows that just days after receiving the first shipment, Pakistani officials were threatening not to use the vaccine.

"I am deeply frustrated by the Ministry of Health's refusal to use the vaccines," Ecosse's Cochrane wrote in his e-mail to Azhar Mahmood Kayani, the Pakistani prime minister's personal physician, who negotiated the delivery with Cochrane.

In the e-mail, Cochrane reminded Kayani that the vaccines had been tested and shown to be safe by an independent institute that works for the World Health Organization.

"We did not ask for these vaccines, and when we accepted them we did not know they were expired."

The Blagojevich administration said in its statement last week that the last it heard the Pakistanis were happy and the donation was an appropriate ending to a saga.

And the governor, who has previously described his pursuit of the vaccines as "probably the best decision I've ever made," still maintains Illinois should write the check.

...and I maintain Ecosse should consider the idea of suing Blagojevich personally. It was his illegal scheme, and the State of Illinois is right to renounce it, but it's a shame Hynes and his supporters didn't do it before the contracts were ever signed.

Look on the bright side: At least Blagojevich didn't "pull an Obama" and threaten to bomb them over it, spurring violent, anti-American street protests.

Fight The People

Rod Blagojevich swears a sacred blood oath that there shall be no budget that does not comply with his will, no matter what happens.

Without a budget in place, Blagojevich issued a stern letter to the Legislature outlining his demands and calling for a one-month, stop-gap budget. He added that "a 'take it or leave it' approach on a 12-month budget, sent to me as government shutdown looms, will do nothing more than simply precipitate such a shutdown."

The new fiscal year began July 1 without a permanent budget, and a one-month financial plan expired at the beginning of this month. Although the state no longer has the power to spend money, government continued to function.

Legislative staff reported that the leaders' negotiations were positive; Patty Schuh, spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville, said Watson remained hopeful a budget could be passed by the middle of next week.

But while negotiations continued privately, Blagojevich publicly announced again that he would veto any budget that didn't include his desired funding increases for education, health care, capital construction and pension debt. And Blagojevich said the budget must be balanced.

Of course, he also won't accept a tax increase. Apparently, Blagojevich went to the "Can't We Just Print More Money?" School of Economics. (It's somewhere in Belgium.)

"A last-minute budget sent to my desk that fails on these criteria will be dead on arrival," Blagojevich wrote.

That claim drew criticism, particularly from Hynes, an outspoken fellow Democrat.

"It is astonishing that after signing four budgets, billions of dollars out of balance, the governor is now finding a moral objection to a potentially out-of -balance budget, while threatening to shut down state government in the process," Hynes wrote in response.

"The governor's hypocrisy knows no bounds," Hynes added.

In another development Wednesday, some of Blagojevich's biggest supporters have broken ranks, asking him to rescind his pledge to veto an income tax hike. Leaders of several powerful education and labor lobbies presented an eleventh-hour plan, with the backing of the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the Illinois AFL-CIO, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Those groups are advocating a 0.25 percentage point increase annually for four years, raising the state's income tax to 4 percent from 3 percent. The groups predict that each year, revenue from the tax would rise by $800 million, which they want sealed in a special fund for education.

Blagojevich has a long and storied history of looting special funds, getting slapped with various injunctions and such. In the most absurd case, Blagojevich was sued after he tried to seize $125,000,000 in private donations that had been made to an environmental charity set up by the state. He lost, and in a surreal move, appealed, which only led to another courtroom defeat. So, pardon my skepticism of the idea of trusting him with a massive "special fund" for education: That's what all the other seizures of "special funds" were supposed to pay for, as was the Illinois Lottery, back in the day. Funding education in Illinois may very well be one of the most lucrative scams a con-artist can get into.

Besides, now Blagojevich has said that not only will he continue this fight, but, to drag on a tradition of ill-placed baseball references in Illinois politics, he doesn't care if he ever gets back.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich threatened on Wednesday to keep the record nine-week impasse going until he gets his way-even if that means staying at the Capitol all year.

"At the end of the day, do people really care whether or not the Cubs win in 14 innings or 9 innings?" Blagojevich asked reporters. "It's whether they win or lose."

Blagojevich vowed to pass his health-care proposal even if it takes "12 months to get it right for the people."

In a letter Wednesday to legislative leaders, Blagojevich reiterated his desire for another one-month budget and wrote that he would "never sign a budget that is constructed to appear balanced but is, in fact, unbalanced and therefore unconstitutional."

Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), said the governor's letter provides "additional notoriety for his failed policies."

Even away from Springfield, Rod's fellow Democrats talk trash.

State Reps. Lisa Dugan of Bradley and Careen Gordon of Morris, both Democrats, say it's way past time for the governor to negotiate in good faith.

"It's his job to represent the whole state and his priorities don't match the whole state's priorities," said Gordon, taking time out from mingling with the diverse crowd to comment on the impasse. "What we need is a state budget that won't hurt people's personal budgets."

I've really come to believe that the only way Illinois will ever be able to bail itself out is through grassroots public education: Most Illinoisans just aren't even aware of how completely screwed up it is. They know, intuitively, there are problems, and react when corruption and incompetence hit them personally, but the mind-boggling, system-wide scope of it, even with government shutdown looming, is successfully kept out of the public discourse.

It'll Be Just Like "Mad Max"

The State of Illinois prepares for a miniature apocalyspe.

"It's frustrating. It's perplexing. It's embarrassing. And it's inexplicable," [State Comptroller Dan] Hynes[, a Chicago Democrat] said. He was referring to the inability of House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones and Blagojevich, all Democrats from Chicago, to agree on a budget.

Legislative leaders remained mostly quiet on the budget negotiations. After a negotiation session Monday evening, both Jones and House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, said they felt progress had been made.

Blagojevich was left out of those talks. He spent part of his day at a coal mine in Farmersville, touting the incentive package he signed to lure the Department of Energy's experimental clean coal power plant to Illinois.

You might say he was out on a snow job day.

Blagojevich's absence from the budget negotiations emphasized the thoughts that some lawmakers expressed over the weekend that the governor has become irrelevant.

Madigan and Jones have differences between themselves, and they've also disagreed with the governor on some issues. While Jones remains one of the governor's key allies, fewer than 20 out of 59 senators showed up for the governor's special legislative session on Saturday.

Similarly, when the House met early Monday afternoon, less than 30 were present for another special session called by the governor. The House met again early Monday evening, but adjourned after little debate.

The Senate also met briefly Monday with the same outcome.

Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Collinsville, defended the governor and said the budget was the Legislature's responsibility. Hoffman also filed a measure that would extend the temporary budget through August.

Of course, it was Blagojevich who simultaneously insulted the entire legislative body and ordered them to stay in Springfield, at a cost of $42,000 a day, until they give him the budget meeting the criteria which he hath ordained. They have now conducted the longest overtime session in the history of Illinois, and Rod, unbelievably, says he's proud of it, because, he says, he's "not interested in settling for any old budget that doesn't do anything for people". Apparently, his office is also oblivious to the impending disaster, with spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch having stated she "had no knowledge of agencies issuing directives about what will happen in the event of a shutdown in August", even as state agencies freak out like it's Y2K, because the whole idiotic situation is so unprecedented that nobody knows what they're supposed to do if it happens.

Governor Corruptevich has even gone so far as to declare that the problem is that he sees the glass as half full, and Madigan sees it as half empty.

No, seriously. That's what he said, despite the fact that to virtually everyone else, it seems that the problem is that the glass is in the hands of a bunch of complete non-competents. Hynes is left in the awkward position of asking state leaders to "sign an agreement" to finish the budget by August 8th, while Blagojevich, who previously claimed he would oppose another temporary budget, is now a bit more receptive, given the failure of his strongarming of the legislature. Now, it's lawmakers who have lost interest in the arrangement. If things continue at this rate, the State of Illinois eventually won't be doing anything for anybody at all.

The mood in the capital remained uncertain about when a budget resolution might come. Although some officials predicted that the Legislature would be done by this weekend, Madigan scheduled a committee of the whole meeting for Aug. 8.

If the state goes without a budget, some state employees may have to decide whether to show up for work. Also, the fate of the Illinois State Fair seemed more uncertain. Both Hynes and Jeff Squibb, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, said they were unsure of what would happen to the annual exposition, set to begin Aug. 10.

If a budget is not passed by Aug. 8, schools will likely be the biggest loser, missing that $170 million in aid. Matt Vanover, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Education, said some school districts might have to dip into cash reserves or even borrow against future payments.

The funniest thing of all is that a mailing list I still follow covering Illinois politics featured an advertisement for a rally to demand the legislature pass a budget immediately, to prevent the closure of state government.

The unanimous, half-joking response?

"Why on Earth would we want to keep it open?"

Somehow, I doubt that the government's failure to provide services would relieve the people of Illinois of any part of their tax burden.

Check Voluntarily Bounced

Rod Blagojevich donates to charity nearly $45,000 in campaign donations linked to an indicted henchman.

The charity sends the money back.

(Not really quite that simple, but a priceless moment nonetheless.)

A Matter of Priorities

What do you get when a state that should be in survival mode is instead trying to figure out how to pay for health insurance for the children of families who can already afford it? System-wide collapse.

While Illinois lawmakers and Gov. Rod Blagojevich haggle over a spending plan for the coming year, documents show some state facilities are literally falling apart.

From leaky roofs to broken air conditioning systems, state documents show that bureaucrats are spending millions of dollars to try and stay one step ahead of the deterioration.

At Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, for example, documents show a leaky roof installed 19 years ago has resulted in at least two cells being left unusable after it rains. Officials say it could get worse, eventually affecting the gymnasium, a computer room and several other key offices.

"If not repaired, this building may soon become unusable for its current functions," Warden Gregory Firkus wrote in a letter requesting $329,150 in emergency funds to fix the problems.

At Shawnee Correctional Center in Johnson County, officials said there are numerous fire code violations that have cost taxpayers $667,800 to fix in recent months.

At the state's main office building in Chicago, officials estimate the cost to repair a fire-control pump at $150,000. Without the emergency repair, the safety of the occupants of the building, as well as important state records, is in question.

Records show roof problems at the minimum-security lockup in Vienna have cost more than $2.4 million to fix. Without the work, officials said the interiors of 10 buildings were in jeopardy.

Northern Illinois University has spent nearly $486,000 in recent months on emergency repairs. The roof on the Neptune West residence hall was so leaky that several dorm rooms had to be closed. Road surfaces on the campus also had to be repaired to make sure emergency vehicles could reach at least two dormitories.

Southern Illinois University says it needs nearly $400 million to upgrade facilities at its Carbondale campus. At Illinois State University that figure is over $250 million. Eastern Illinois University says it needs $120 million to upgrade facilities, while the tab at Western Illinois University is $105 million.

Blagojevich has tied these critical repairs to his controversial jobs programs, some of which I addressed many moons ago in a post entitled "Just Give Him Your Wallet". Essentially, since Blagojevich is psychologically incapable of liberating the state's economy, he wants the state to create jobs directly by spending billions of dollars it doesn't have to build, among other things, roads and highways it doesn't need. In one case, he dug up $20,000,000 to hire bricklayers to add different colors and textures of bricks to state highways, to "add variety" to the system.

This isn't Alberta, Kuwait or Norway, folks. The money isn't coming out of the ground, there isn't an unlimited amount of it, and the basic duties of state government are not being performed. It's one of those situations that's truly alarming, because you have to wonder, if things are this bad, exactly how Louisiana-like would it be if there were a natural disaster?

The Breck Governor

How much does it cost for Rod Blagojevich to pretend he's a rock star?

Stuck for weeks combing over numbers in the state's fiscal impasse, Gov. Rod Blagojevich found himself the object of ridicule Saturday over a newly discovered $600 bill for a makeup artist he used when he unveiled his budget months ago.

The $600 bill was mistakenly paid with taxpayer funds, and the makeup artist is reimbursing the state, said Abby Ottenhoff, Blagojevich spokeswoman. The governor's political fund provided records that showed the artist had billed the campaign fund and been paid with campaign funds already.

But the $600 bill, first reported in the Southern Illinoisan, became a momentary subject of debate in the House.

As Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) attempted to send lawmakers home for the weekend, Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Greenville) jokingly questioned when to expect a meeting of the "Gubernatorial Cosmetology Committee," prompting laughter from many of the 53 lawmakers at the brief session.

"Word has not arrived from the second floor," said Madigan, referring to the governor's capitol office.

In the Senate, President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) noted he does his own makeup for appearances, saying he's "got a little powder to put on."

"We all want the governor to look good, but I don't know why he spent taxpayer money to look good," Jones said. "I don't think he would intentionally use taxpayer money to look good."

He assigned a taxpayer-funded bodyguard the job of carrying his hairbrush, used taxpayer-funded prison psychologists to monitor media coverage of his administration, and used taxpayer money to hire his own camera crews. What universe does Jones live in where he doesn't think Blagojevich would do this?

Speaking of pretending he's a rock star, his ongoing travel habits are still a concern:

Blagojevich was rightly criticized for his practice throughout most of May and June of flying from Chicago to Springfield, staying a couple of hours and then flying back. At a cost of $6,000 a day, it was a needless expense when the governor should have been in Springfield working full tilt on the budget.

Then Blagojevich's office announced that, beginning July 5, the governor would be staying in Springfield until a new budget is passed. Five days later, Blagojevich held a news conference to say he was calling the Legislature into special session to consider a gun-control bill. Three days after that, he held a news conference on health-care costs.

Care to guess where he held the news conferences? That's right, Chicago.

So even when he stays overnight in Springfield, Blagojevich still finds a way to run up the tab on the state airplane.

Blagojevich, seemingly insane, says that the ongoing budget crisis conforms to his plan, "totally what I envisioned".

He Throws Like A Girl

Rod Blagojevich was last seen complaining that state legislators don't work hard enough. Actually, he sent a henchperson to do it, because apparently he was far too busy to come down to the state capital (where he allegedly works but does not live and is rarely seen). Including among the duties that keep him away, apparently, is standing around in the yard of his Chicago home on a weekday during a critical overtime budget session, playing catch.

Code of Silence
For some reason, Rod Blagojevich doesn't want developers to talk about their own plans until he can spin it:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration has ordered private developers not to talk about plans for a huge new resort near Pinckneyville until Blagojevich himself can announce it, sources say.

Some lawmakers who support the project say that public relations directive could be endangering the proposal.

"People have asked, 'If these (developers) are credible, why don't they answer the phone?'" said state Sen. David Luechtefeld, R-Okawville. He is among several lawmakers who say they learned late last week of the administration's gag order, and now are pressing to have it lifted.

The Toney Watkins Co., a Glen Carbon-based investment group, wants to construct a Branson-like, 5,000-acre resort near Pinckneyville, possibly under a controversial land swap arrangement with the state. That controversy has been heightened in the past week by the dead silence of the company and its lobbyists, to the point of failing to even answer reporters' phone calls.

Several legislators and company officials confirmed Friday that the reason for the silence is a directive from Blagojevich's Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which has been involved in talks on the project and could potentially offer financing or other assistance for it.

Belleville consultant Geri Boyer, who is working with the developers, said the gag order was contained in a letter from the agency. "It says we are not allowed to talk with the press until the governor announces the project," Boyer told the Post-Dispatch.

Chicago attorney Walter R. Dale, general counsel and vice president for the Toney Watkins Co., also confirmed on Friday the existence of the letter, though he said he couldn't detail its contents because it wasn't in front of him. He said the company's public silence has been partly because "we're trying to get a clear reading on what we're allowed to discuss" as laid out in the letter.

A spokesman for the economic development agency initially denied on Friday that the agency has told developers not to discuss the project. When pressed specifically about the letter that Boyer and Dale said the developers received from the agency, the spokesman would neither confirm nor deny its existence.

"I'm not sure what letter she's referring to," said the spokesman, Andrew Ross. "We're aware of the project, but that's for the developers to talk about."

A message left with Blagojevich's office Friday wasn't returned.

I'm going to guess it was intended purely to allow him to get the facetime. It fits his pattern, but nothing good can come of it.

In other news, Blagojevich says he will not accept a new budget that does not provide a $100,000,000 bailout for the Chicago Transit Authority. I continue to wonder where he thinks this money comes from, and that concern is shared by some new Democratic legislators.

Sen. Mike Frerichs, D-Gifford, said he was asked what it would take for him to vote for Blagojevich's universal health care plan.

"There's nothing you can give me," Frerichs said he told Blagojevich's staff. "I just don't think that the timing is right or that this particular bill is the right way to address our health care problem in the state, and I'm not willing to trade a vote for 30 pieces of silver in order to do that."

Frerichs and others say Jones hasn't pressured them to cast potentially dangerous votes. They say he knows the political realities of their new districts and doesn't want to endanger their chances of re-election.

Perhaps he didn't have to. Earlier in the session, Jones stunned the Statehouse by using a rare parliamentary move to reverse a victory that one of his own members had achieved on legislation the Senate president opposed. It sent a clear message: Jones wields the power.

Blagojevich and Jones have accused House Speaker Michael Madigan of blocking progress. Blagojevich has suggested lawmakers don't work hard enough. Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, accused the governor of threatening to ruin his career unless Jacobs voted for his health plan.

Blagojevich claiming that state legislators don't work hard enough is absolutely insane, given that he's the man who refused to move to the state capital, and sent a flunky to hurl the accusations at the Assembly, being too lazy to come down and do it himself. Even former Illinois Governor Dan Walker, who, as Blagojevich likely will in the future, ended up spending some time in prison after his time in office, says that Illinois government is too corrupt and that Blagojevich is a cretin.

Only in Illinois: An ex-con, saying Illinois politics is too corrupt.

Another One Bites The Dust
Ali Ata, a corrupt flunky of corrupt Governor Rod Blagojevich flunky Tony Rezko, is going down:

The former executive director of a billion-dollar state bonding agency was indicted Thursday on charges of helping a political contributor and entrepreneur defraud General Electric Capital Corp. out of $10 million.

Ali D. Ata, 55, was accused of producing a bogus letter designed to help Antoin Rezko borrow the $10 million from the corporation in what prosecutors described as a plan to buy two groups of pizza restaurants at inflated prices.

Ata, of suburban Lemont, will plead not guilty, said his attorney Thomas McQueen.

Prosecutors already had charged Rezko with defrauding GE Capital in the deal, which involved the purchase of the restaurants at inflated prices and a transfer of their assets to himself and another buyer. He has pleaded not guilty.

The state agency that this fraudster was in charge of?

Ata was named the executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority in January 2004. He left in March 2005. A longtime Rezko friend and business associate, he contributed $65,000 to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's campaign. The governor has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Oh, sure he has. Just not by the Feds. Yet.

The indictment alleges that in February 2004, at Rezko's request, Ata signed a letter on finance authority letterhead that falsely made it appear an unnamed investor had applied for financing in connection with the purchase of pizza restaurants in Chicago and Milwaukee.

Ata knew that Rezko intended to show the letter to GE Capital to persuade the lending company to give him funds to take part in the restaurants' purchase, the indictment said.

In addition to the charge of defrauding GE Capital out of the $10 million, Rezko also has pleaded not guilty to separate charges that he worked with millionaire political contributor Stuart Levine to squeeze payoffs out of money management companies seeking state business.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Dan Curry is eyeballing David Gustman suspiciously, another man tied up in the same bunch.

Tradition Unbroken
Yet another State of Illinois public service announcement mysteriously turns into a Blagojevich campaign ad.

"Thanks to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois State Police Internet crime unit, e-criminals will no longer be able to victimize Illinois citizens," the ad's narrator says.

The ad was sponsored and paid for by the state police, an agency spokesman said.

"It seems to me to be directly in violation of the state's ethics law," said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which was a leading advocate for the ethics act. "There is a certain irony to the state police in violating this law. Though the ad seems laden with good intent, I don't think it really gained anything by mentioning Gov. Blagojevich's name."

Throughout his tenure as governor, Blagojevich has found numerous ways to use taxpayer resources to promote himself and his programs. In the year leading up to his 2006 re-election campaign, state agencies under his control sent hundreds of thousands of "Dear Friend" letters and e-mails to constituency groups promoting Blagojevich's efforts on issues ranging from women's health to teen driving.

He also has come under fire for specially constructed signs placed on the tollways' electronic toll-collection lanes during his re-election campaign. The 32 signs, reading "Open Road Tolling. Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor," cost $480,000. The signs do not violate the ethics act, but some lawmakers want to amend the law to prevent it from happening again.

Rod Blagojevich remains the Bender the Robot of politics. If Blagojevich had slaves, he'd have them build a pyramid in his honor.

You know it's true.

Did You Feel That, Rod?
Rod Blagojevich: Shot out of the sky.

Gov. Blagojevich suffered a resounding and stunning defeat Thursday when the Illinois House overwhelmingly rejected his proposed $7.6 billion business tax.

Guess how many voted against it? Just guess.

Before the ink had dried on the 107-0 vote, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) signaled possible interest in launching a different tax-increase proposal.

Blagojevich crisscrossed the state and appeared in TV ads to promote his gross receipts tax, which was the linchpin of the record $60.1 billion budget he proposed for next year.

Bizarrely, Blagojevich attempted to save face at the last minute by first siding with opponents of his own idea, then attempting to change their argument:

Yet, before the House vote-which technically was on a non-binding resolution from Madigan to gauge support for the plan-the governor issued a perplexing statement urging lawmakers to side against his tax.

A no-vote on Madigan's resolution, Blagojevich reasoned, would "send a clear message that this issue is too important for a rush to judgment on a non-binding resolution."

The Chicago Sun-Times should suspend the editor who allowed the word "reasoned" to be used in that sentence. Words like "claimed", "imagined" or, say, "fantasized" would all be far more objective and neutral in this case.

The governor insisted it is "premature" to end discussions over the tax, since the administration had not responded fully to questions lawmakers posed Wednesday.

But members of both parties saw the statement as an attempt to paper over a humiliating political defeat.

Blagojevich's entire administration has been an attempt to paper over humiliating failures. This is merely a new tactic in his long-running battle with reality. (Via SondraK)

Do Not Pass Go
Meanwhile, another individual with close ties to Governor Rod Blagojevich is probably going to prison.

Two months after she was arrested, a woman with close ties to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife has been indicted on charges of bilking the state of more than $2 million, Cook County prosecutors said Friday.

Anita K. Mahajan, 56, owns K.K. Bioscience Inc., which has had a contract since the 1990s to conduct drug screenings for clients of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Prosecutors claim the company billed the state for screenings that were never performed.

Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Michael Smith said Mahajan was indicted for the theft of more than $100,000 from a government entity, continuing financial crimes enterprise and false certification. If convicted, Mahajan faces 6 to 30 years in prison.

Mahajan did not speak during a brief court hearing Friday and would not comment afterward. A judge scheduled her arraignment for May 24.

Mahajan and her banker husband, Amrish, paid first lady Patti Blagojevich more than $113,000 in commissions from real estate deals last year. Amrish Mahajan is also a contributor to Blagojevich's political campaigns.

In March, I cited a John Kass piece explaining those ties in more detail. At one point, the Governor accused people who questioned his wife's business dealings of sexism.

In one of those convenient bits of timing that keep popping up lately, Mayor Daley's offices returned Mahajan's campaign contributions several days before warrants were served on Mahajan. You have to wonder who got tipped off.

The Corruptin'ist Guns In the Midwest
The Chicago Sun-Times takes a rather mortifying look at Rezmar, the company of hot dog salesman and top Blagojevich henchman Tony Rezko, and the amazingly convenient coincidences that tie it to Barack Obama, a potential source of even greater mortification.

Two decades ago, Antoin "Tony'' Rezko was running a food company that peddled hot dogs on Chicago's beaches. Daniel S. Mahru supplied the ice.

These businessmen had a brainstorm for a new venture -- rehabbing rundown buildings for poor black families. Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience. Yet City Hall gave their new company, Rezmar Corp., a $629,000 loan to help fix up an abandoned apartment building at 46th and Drexel. They had applied for the loan just six days after Richard M. Daley won his first term as mayor in 1989, having campaigned on a promise to build more housing for the poor.

Taxpayers have lost $5.7 million in grants and loans written off by the Daley administration, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. Millions more could be written off, based on court records and interviews. And the IRS has so far demanded that corporations repay $7.8 million in tax breaks they got for investing in Rezmar apartments that failed to provide low-income housing for at least 15 years.

"Every one of these properties has failed,'' said Phillip Kupritz, the architect on every Rezmar low-income rehab.

Rezko did not respond to interview requests regarding the low-income housing deals. Rezko is under federal indictment on unrelated charges, accused of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under the Blagojevich administration. He's also charged with fraudulently obtaining a $10 million loan for pizza restaurants he began while fixing up low-income buildings with tax dollars.

As Rezmar's loan application was pending, Daley reformed the Housing Department. Daley said he found that housing officials were giving loans to their cronies. So the mayor's staff would now decide who got the money.

Danger! Danger!

And his staff liked Rezmar, which got more than $24 million in loans and $8.5 million in federal tax credits from the city to rehab 14 buildings during Daley's first six years as mayor....All 14 of those buildings ended up in financial straits. Today, three are boarded up.

In fact, they were horrific tenement-like slums, with hundreds of the 1,000+ units Rezmar was given money to fix up today in desperate need of major repairs:

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side....Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years....Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.

In fact, 11 of Rezko's buildings were in Obama's district, and Obama happened to work for the same law firm - Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland - that helped Rezko and Mahru get the money. Obama's campaign staff claims that Obama put in only five billable hours of work on Rezmar projects.

In fact, Gibbs wrote, "Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties.''

The depth of coincidental Obama-Rezko ties certainly seems odd: prior to joining the firm, Obama had been offered a job at Rezmar by David Brint, a Vice-President at Rezmar. There also seem to be contradictions between Obama's claims and those of the Davis law firm:

Davis said he didn't remember Obama working on the Rezmar projects.

"I don't recall Barack having any involvement in real estate transactions,'' Davis said. "Barack was a litigator. His area of focus was litigation, class-action suits.''

But Obama did legal work on real estate deals while at Davis' firm, according to biographical information he submitted to the Sun-Times in 1998. Obama specialized "in civil rights litigation, real estate financing, acquisition, construction and/or redevelopment of low-and moderate income housing,'' according to his "biographical sketch." And he did legal work on Rezko's deals, according to an e-mail his presidential campaign staff sent the Sun-Times on Feb. 16, in response to earlier inquiries. The staff didn't specify which Rezmar projects Obama worked on, or his role. But it drew a distinction between working for Rezko and working on projects involving his company.

"Senator Obama did not directly represent Mr. Rezko or his firms. He did represent on a very limited basis ventures in which Mr. Rezko's entities participated along with others,'' according to the e-mail from Obama's staff.

So what's the truth? What we know for sure is that the relationship between Obama and Rezko, which had previously been portrayed as a mere acquaintence, ultimately culminated in Rezko selling Senator Obama part of the yard to his new mansion:

Over the years, Rezko, Mahru, their wives and businesses have given more than $50,000 to Obama's campaign funds, records show. And Rezko has helped raise millions more.

Rezko was among the people Obama appointed to serve on his U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, the Sun-Times reported in 2003. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, helping send Obama to Washington in 2004.

Two years ago, Obama bought a mansion on the South Side, in the Kenwood neighborhood, from a doctor. On the same day, Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko, bought the vacant lot next door from the same seller. The doctor had listed the properties for sale together. He sold the house to Obama for $300,000 below the asking price. The doctor got his asking price on the lot from Rezko's wife.

Last year, Rita Rezko sold a strip of that vacant lot to Obama for $104,500 -- a deal Obama later apologized for, acknowledging that people might think he got a favor from Rezko. Obama called the episode "boneheaded'' and a "mistake.''

Rezko's trial has been postponed while the Feds try to understand his almost surreal finances, a feat that I'd imagine would challenge even some very fine accountants. The Chicago Sun-Times question and answer session with Obama's campaign is here.

The Man Without A Friend
It seems that Rod Blagojevich keeps losing track of his associates, as the Chicago Tribune's John Kass observes:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich sure got edgy about Mahajan when Tribune reporter John Chase asked him about their relationship Thursday.

Blagojevich said he knew Mahajan but then tried to change the subject to baseball.

"What do you think of the Cubs?" the governor said.

"I don't have any thoughts about the Cubs," Chase said. "I'm a Sox fan. Could you please answer the question?"

Mahajan isn't a household name, unless you live in the Daley or Blagojevich households, or the home of federally indicted Blagojevich fundraiser Tony Rezko, who received millions of dollars in loans from Mahajan's Mutual Bank in Harvey for real estate deals.

You've got to wonder if the lunch buddies still discuss politics and business with Mahajan, or whether they're painfully silent and awkward around him these days, as they avoid speaking directly into his tiepin.

Based on my experience on how friendships unravel, I figure their current conversations are limited strictly to sports, the weather and "hey, pass the steak sauce."

Mahajan must be doubly lonely now that Blagojevich dumped him. They were close until quite recently, a span of time as thin as a federal subpoena.

In October, the Tribune reported that the governor's wife, Patti, received $113,700 in real estate commissions through Amrish and Anita Mahajan. Interestingly enough, wife Anita Mahajan denied the relationship.

"I didn't hire her," she said then about Patti. "I didn't even know who she was until closing. That's when I heard she was the governor's wife. I try not to get involved in politics."

She must not have tried too hard. She owns a drug testing company with no-bid state contracts, and she was arrested and charged this week with bilking state taxpayers out of $2.1 million for tests the company allegedly never performed.

One of Mahajan's oldest supporters in politics is Daley, who in one of his first acts as mayor in 1989 appointed Mahajan to the Chicago Plan Commission, which makes decisions on real estate and development. Daley and his brother Cook County Commissioner John Daley appreciate Mahajan's political connections with Indian-American groups along Devon Avenue.

John Daley even authored a resolution proclaiming Mahajan to be a very nice man. Blagojevich thought he was a nice man, too, once, though he became angry when Patti's real estate deals were questioned.

"To suggest that she doesn't have the right to have her own business, and pursue her own business, is Neanderthal and sexist," he declared during his campaign to reform Illinois last year.

Another interesting note is the investigation itself. The fraud charges against Anita Mahajan are not federal charges. They're state charges, filed by the Cook County state's attorney's office.

In January, five days before search warrants were served allowing county investigators to seize the Mahajan drug testing company files, Mayor Daley had the amazing foresight to quietly return Mahajan's $5,000 contribution.

In unrelated news, the Governor's appointees and aids apparently run their offices in a manner similar to Nero and Caligula, what with the $74,000-a-year "chauffeurs" serving as pool boys to female employers, and guys in turbans with vague job descriptions running about imposing themselves on unsuspecting coworkers.

Rod Blagojevich: Destroyer of Worlds
History's greatest monster.

Illinois would see the largest tax increase in its history under Gov. Rod Blagojevich's plan to provide health care for the uninsured and ramp up state support for education.

Rod Blagojevich has proposed the largest tax increase in the history of the State of Illinois. Ever. I just wanted to make sure that's clear.

Blagojevich also called Wednesday for leasing the state lottery to a private contractor and borrowing billions of dollars in a bid to solve the state's most pressing financial problem - pension systems soaking up more and more of Illinois' tax money.

Even before his State of the State address, business groups were organizing to oppose Blagojevich's call for $7 billion in new corporate taxes. The biggest tax, a gross receipts tax, would apply to every type of business transaction, from auto sales to medical care.

...and people wonder why nobody wants to do busines in Illinois.

His education plan also could face trouble, since it would do nothing to address calls for a fundamental change in the way Illinois pays for education.

Blagojevich presented a sweeping proposal to make health insurance available to anyone who wants it, an idea he says is the moral thing to do. The Democratic governor says 1.4 million Illinoisans, including many working people, cannot afford insurance now.

In all, Blagojevich's budget calls for a record $60.1 billion in spending, a 9.5% increase over the current year.

This is Rod Blagojevich run completely amok. Employers aren't paying enough in Illinois for their lowest-earning employees to pay for health insurance because operating margins are so slim across the state already, and they certainly aren't going to be doling out any raises when they're squeezed for another $7,000,000,000, an amount to comes to roughly $564 per Illinoisan. The same working people who can't afford health insurance now are going to be people who can't pay rent when they get laid off and the unemployment runs out.

Where is the statesman who will lead Illinois out of this farce?

The Chewbacca DefenseHeh:

Lawyers for the Blagojevich administration urged an administrative judge Monday to focus on misconduct by two fired workers and not get drawn into whether the governor's office pulled strings for some job applicants.

"Certainly, it's possible my client is a mafia hitman, but shouldn't we really be looking at whether or not the victims had it coming before we start pointing fingers?" Maybe he should try the Chris Murphy defense.

Eyes on the Prize
It's not that I don't approve of public officials having a good time, but this seems a little Nero-like.

OLYMPIA, Wash.– Confident the Seahawks have hit their stride, Gov. Chris Gregoire has placed a wager on this Sunday's playoff game against Chicago.

She bet Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich that the defending NFC champion Seahawks would beat the Bears at Soldier Field in the second round of the NFC playoffs.

At stake is smoked salmon and Washington's world-renowned apples. Blagojevich countered with an offer of a Du Quoin state fair favorite, 17th Street barbecue, and Cozy Dogs, an Illinois tradition from Route 66.

"The Seahawks have found a way to win despite difficulties with injuries this season and, once again, we see them in the playoffs," Gregoire said in a statement. "I can't wait to serve Illinois barbecue and hot dogs for the NFC championship game."

The Seahawks are coming off a 21-20 win over the Dallas Cowboys in last Saturday's NFC wild-card game. The Bears beat Seattle 37-6 at Soldier Field earlier this season.

"I look forward to enjoying Washington smoked salmon and apples when the Bears shut them down," Blagojevich said.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels placed wagers with each other on Thursday.

Good to see they're dealing with the most pressing elements of the people's business first.

Besides, hot dogs? Send her some Italian beef, Rod.