Ill. lawmakers go home amid budget confusion

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois legislators adjourned Wednesday without taking action on the budget, as Gov. Pat Quinn backed away from threats to make painful cuts to social services — deepening confusion about when the state will have a spending plan and what it will look like.

Lawmakers went home until next week, even though the current budget expires at midnight Tuesday and no new budget plan is close to being finished.

Officials couldn’t even agree on the size of the deficit they face. Is it $11.6 billion or $9.2 billion or maybe even $7 billion?

“We’re going to be here for a long time,” warned Sen. James DeLeo, D-Chicago.

In general, Republicans want a temporary budget so talks on a final spending plan can continue. Quinn, a Democrat, has remained optimistic that they can come to an agreement — which now seems unlikely.

Quinn had been warning that a bare-bones budget proposed by legislators would force him to slash spending for child care, drug counseling, women’s health and more. But he seemed to rule out such moves Wednesday.

“We’re not going to visit all the cuts on the most fragile and vulnerable people in our society,” he said.

State government faces a historic budget crisis. New programs, rising expenses and a huge drop in revenues have combined to leave the state without enough money to cover its costs for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Quinn originally put the shortfall at $11.6 billion and says he and legislators have agreed on measures to trim the deficit to $9.2 billion. He wants to fill the rest of that gap with a mix of higher income taxes, spending cuts, federal aid and financial maneuvers.

Many legislators — mostly Republicans but also some Democrats — are balking at raising income taxes. They have approved a version of the budget without any additional tax revenue.

For weeks, Quinn insisted that plan falls billions of dollars short of covering state expenses and would require cuts of up to 50 percent to services for the state’s sick and needy.

Again and again, Quinn sought to build support for a tax increase by visiting community agencies that depend on state support to illustrate what services would be cut under the Legislature’s budget proposal.