Supplies low on the

AREN'T YOU glad you don't live in snow-packed Minnesota? Or in freezing Michigan?

It isn't just the weather we're talking about, although Illinois' miserable winters seem almost balmy when compared to the downright awful ones of our two neighbors. No, it isn't the winters that should make you glad you live in Illinois. Next month Gov. James R. Thompson gives the real reason.

That's when he goes to the state's cupboard to see what's there for next year's spending. It'll be his bottom line, let's-keep-the-wolves-from-the-door, bare-bones budget for fiscal year 1983, beginning July 1.

You won't immediately see why Illinois is still preferable to our northern neighbors. But you will. It's the bones. Illinois still has some to boil. And they have meat enough on them to make soup, to gnaw, or even given downstate a new prison.

Minnesota and Michigan have run out of bones. Ohio figures it's down to its last knuckle. A lot of Midwest states are that way this winter. They've heard from Washington that help is on its way. The cavalry, they've been told, is led by that handsome, swashbuckling Ronald Reagan. He's on his way to save starving settlers.

But Minnesota, Michigan and others didn't have enough in their cupboards to last until Capt. Reagan's federal "salvation" army shows up. They boosted taxes to help them through this terrible winter.

Illinois, on the other hand, still has supplies in the larder, although they're getting low. Quartermaster Thompson cut the fat off the budget long ago. He since has cooked most but not all of the meat and muscle to keep his prairie settiers from starving.

And provisions promised by Reagan are far from certain. For one thing, they're arriving by way of the little explored Trickle-down Trail. There's no guarantee the path goes anywhere-but to the doorsteps of the rich.

Illinois is one of the few Midwest states that has been able to avoid higher general taxes or gigantic deficits. Illinois' fiscal '83 budget should prove a true test of whether Thompson can continue to do so and still satisfy essential needs. He hopes the state can hold out until the arrival of Reagan's aid, which, if it arrives at all, will come in two forms.

The first is slashes in federal spending for nearly everything except Reagan's cavalry — the Department of Defense. Reagan contends less federal spending means less inflation, and that means settlers can provide better for themselves — in some areas — than the government can. Some starving settlers (probably suffering from cabin fever) say that's like the U.S. Vietnam strategy of saving villages by destroying them.

The second bundle is full of billion-dollar tax cuts for individuals and corporations. They're the ones whose cooperation allows people like Thompson to stay on in the kitchen.

Another reason why bones are all Thompson has to offer next year is the generous tax relief dished out when the cupboard was full. Thompson's a realist, however. He has watched the state's cupboard empty steadily this year. This year's budget has been revised nearly a half dozen times, always downward.

2/ February 1982/Illinois Issues

But next fiscal year features an election. Faced with what may be a grueling reelection campaign against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III, Thompson surely will aim to please, so long as it doesn't wipe out the state's entire reserve. Thompson knows when he lays out the budget menu in his March address to the General Assembly, down-staters will howl in a familiar chorus that the six-county Chicago area is hogging all the food.

It's bunk, of course, as studies have shown. Proportionately, downstate depends to a greater degree on the state than does Chicago. For myriad reasons, the 96 downstate counties are less able than Chicago to hide extra supplies in their own cupboards.

A state bone in a city of 20,000 like Jacksonville looks larger when translated into the local economy than when it goes to northeastern Illinoisans — even though there are more people to "feed" in that region. Downstate, of course, will carefully analyze the governor's budget for any hints of unequal portions.

State prisons, mental health facilities and universities are the bread and butter of downstate cities' and counties' private cupboards. Thompson knows that. He has said he will try to maintain at least basic human services for the people of the state.

While Thompson hacks and chops next year's budget, he will also award one meaty bone to downstate — a new, $100 million prison.

Prisons, to cities like Lincoln or Jacksonville or any of the dozen other cities bidding for one, do not mean social deviates or dangerous people living nearby. No, prisons, like other state institutions, mean jobs. And people who get state jobs are not only usually grateful, especially in this tight economy, but, they also have grateful families.

To a politican like Thompson, who wants to remain chief quartermaster of Illinois, it's nice to have a few bones to hand out to grateful state employees with huge, grateful families.

In 1982, that's more than the governors — or people — of Michigan can count on while they wait for Capt. Reagan to rescue them just in the nick of time.

By BARBARA J. HIPSMAN and BOB SPRINGER

February 1982/Illinois lssues/3