Today, Illinois governor Bruce Rauner vetoed budget legislation passed by the Illinois General Assembly. Announcing the veto, Rauner claimed the budget was “nearly $4 billion out of balance,” and cited this as his first reason for the veto.
Illinois’s finances are pretty scary, but the frightening thing here isn’t just how big the deficit was. The frightening thing is that it took a veto to keep the train from leaving the station.
Illinois’s politicians have long referred to the “balanced budget” requirement in the state’s constitution. Article VIII of the state constitution, the “Finance” article, does not include the phrase "balanced budget," and the language has allowed for alternative interpretations, some of them more questionable than others.
How else can you explain a longstanding state failure to keep spending equal or below revenue, and its rapid growth in debt, even as state leaders regularly claimed to deliver a balanced budget?