{"id":576833,"date":"2010-05-24T14:51:31","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T18:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01348186bafa970c"},"modified":"2010-05-24T14:51:31","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T18:51:31","slug":"quinn-not-boxing-himself-in-on-budget-as-lawmakers-return-to-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/576833","title":{"rendered":"Quinn not boxing himself in on budget as lawmakers return to Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Monique Garcia<\/em> at 1:55 p.m.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>Gov. Pat Quinn is not boxing himself in politically as lawmakers return to Springfield today to try to finish the state budget.<\/p>\n<p>Today the governor refused to say if he&#8217;ll sign a spending plan that does not include major borrowing to make a massive state worker pension payment.\n<\/p>\n<p>Quinn says the state can&#8217;t afford the nearly $4 billion payment and therefore should borrow instead of skipping the obligation altogether. But taking out another loan would require the support of Republican lawmakers, who so far are mostly opposed to the idea. <\/p>\n<p>Legislators were prepared to vote on a budget plan two weeks ago until negotiations were sidelined in part because there was no agreement on what to do about the pension payment. Since then Quinn has been holding one-on-one meetings with lawmakers to help build support for the idea, but refuses to say if he&#8217;ll settle for a budget without the borrowing plan. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;We want to do the right thing, so my focus is on that,&quot; Quinn said. &quot;I&#8217;m not going to anticipate anything other than that.&quot; <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Quinn did indicate his support for a plan to cut approximately $1.2 billion from the budget that&#8217;s being pushed by a coalition of Democratic lawmakers. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The proposal would include cutting the vehicle mileage reimbursement rate for state employees as well as renegotiating or rebiding contracts, eliminating salaries for part time board and commission members and reducing spending level for executive agencies by five percent. Other savings measures including cutting $300 million in K-12 education spending and requiring retirees to pay premiums for health care. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Supporters acknowledged some of the cuts might not go over well in Springfield, but the ideas represent a good start. <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;These are first steps,&quot; said Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood. &quot;We&#8217;re not finished yet.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Monique Garcia at 1:55 p.m. Gov. Pat Quinn is not boxing himself in politically as lawmakers return to Springfield today to try to finish the state budget. Today the governor refused to say if he&#8217;ll sign a spending plan that does not include major borrowing to make a massive state worker pension payment. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}