Crises without courage

If one were to take the Illinois General Assembly's legislative outpouring at face value, the inevitable conclusion would be that the Prairie State is beset by more perils than the silent screen's legendary Pauline. In an election year session supposed to be devoted to budget-crafting and emergency legislation, lawmakers introduced more than 2,000 bills, and Senate and House rules committees cleared almost three-quarters of them for action. Lawmakers may be correct in sensing that Illinois is in deep trouble, but not for most of the 1,700-plus reasons addressed by these "emergency" measures.

How urgent is it, for example, that motorists be able to pay an extra $5 to get license plates that add "University of Illinois" to the "Land of Lincoln" logo? Is the common welfare jeopardized because the state has failed thus far to provide its citizens with an official definition of man's best friend? Does anyone — other than the herd of hired guns working the issue —really care whether a Minnesota publishing firm has a copyright on the way Illinois statutes are arranged that prevents an Ohio company from copying them into its computers?

Occasionally, a touch of irony colors such legislative ruminations. Consider, for instance, legislation calling for a study to see whether U.S. firms in which state pension funds are invested adhere to affirmative action principles in their business operations in Northern Ireland. The same day a House committee overwhelmingly endorsed the proposal, described by a sponsor as "a moral, ethical statement that says discrimination is wrong," Gov. James R. Thompson was in Moscow, trying to woo Soviet officials into closer business ties with Illinois. Whatever one might think of the treatment accorded Roman Catholics in Ulster, where equal employment opportunity and religious toleration are legal guarantees, he'd be hard-pressed to pretend that more enlightened policies exist in the U.S.S.R.

Fighting Mini license plates are harmless, of course, and apparently there actually is a state's attorney who needs legal help to tell a dog from a wolf. In like manner, the brouhaha over copyrighted statutes could be justified as a way to keep lobbyists and public relations firms from working more substantive mischief elsewhere, and a nod to the MacBride Principles responds to deep concerns of some vocal Irish-Americans.

But despite the legislature's collective willingness to expand the definition of emergency to cover just about anything a member wants to pursue, as the spring session heads into its final weeks there's still no clear evidence that lawmakers will deal with the one, indisputable, bona fide crisis facing the state — the need to adequately fund education and vital human services.

While Thompson and legislative leaders quickly responded to the prospect of losing the Chicago White Sox to St. Petersburg, Fla., by agreeing to back a sweeter deal for the team's millionaire owners than the original offer they pushed through a reluctant legislature some 17 months ago, no similar sense of urgency has been detectable on the fiscal front.

For most of the spring, it's been a cat-and-mouse game, as the governor and the leaders bobbed and weaved, sidestepped and pirouetted, everyone waiting for someone else to take the lead, offer a plan, back a bill. As usual, the most candid of the legislative leadership has been Senate President Philip J. Rock (D-8, Oak Park), who early on acknowledged that higher taxes were needed; the most enigmatic, as always suits his purpose, was House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-30, Chicago), who along with the Republican leaders, Sen. James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) and Rep. Lee A. Daniels (R-46, Elmhurst), seemed more intent on figuring out how best to gain some partisan advantage from the issue.

Meanwhile, new studies by the legislature's own revenue forecasting arm and by

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a well-respected taxpayer watchdog document the dilemma facing the state: The money simply is not there to fulfill the commitments made to existing programs, much less embark on new ones.

In a landmark analysis, the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission reported that general funds receipts declined in constant dollars in the last decade because of economic factors like the state's slow recovery from recession and noneconomic decisions like tax relief that have shrunk the state's tax base and limited its growth potential. The legislative analysts concluded that the inability of the general funds to keep pace with inflation is a long-term problem that destines state purchasing power to continuing deterioration in the future.

The Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, meanwhile, released a 10-year study of state spending during the Thompson years, a monumental work that likewise showed that state government actually bought less real goods and services in fiscal year 1987 than a decade earlier, despite a nominal general funds spending increase of more than $4.8 billion. In its newsletter, the federation succinctly laid out the problem: "Illinois. . . enters 1988 with a backlog of bills and a payload of promises not kept, the legacy of budgetary self-deceit." Policymakers must choose either to fundamentally constrict or substantially expand state spending, the federation noted, and if the choice is to hold the line, lawmakers should repeal the statutes promising funding commitments that cannot be honored.

In the midst of the shilly-shallying, the tragic death of former Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie served to underscore how sorry the leadership performance has been this spring, as one eulogist after another recalled the late governor's political courage in fathering the state income tax. The tributes were richly deserved for Ogilvie's hallmark as a public official was his determination to do what was right, what was needed to get the job done, regardless of the political consequences.

In 1988 as in 1969 what needs to be done is clear. What's uncertain, however, is whether today's political leaders have the courage to do it.□

Charles N. Wheeler III is a correspondent in the Springfield Bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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