Illinois Meltdown: “The State Can No Longer Function”

[Weatherman2020]

Say it with me: “Unexpectedly.”


With just 10 days to go until Illinois enters its third year without a budget, resulting in the state’s imminent downgrade to junk status and potentially culminating in a default for the state whose unpaid bills now surpass $15 billion, Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza issued a warning to Illinois Gov. Rauner and other elected officials on Tuesday, saying in a letter that her office has “very serious concerns” it may no longer be able to guarantee “timely and predictable payments” for some core services.

In the letter posted on her website, Mendoza who over the weekend warned that Illinois is “in massive crisis mode” and that “this is not a false alarm” said the state is “effectively hemorrhaging money” due to various court orders and laws that have left government spending roughly $600 million more a month than it’s taking in. Mendoza said her office will continue to make debt payments as required, but indicated that services most likely to be affected include long-term care, hospice and supportive living centers for seniors. She added that managed care organizations that serve Medicaid recipients are owed more than $2.8 billion in overdue bills as of June 15.

“The state can no longer function without a responsible and complete budget without severely impacting our core obligations and decimating services to the state’s most in-need citizens,” Mendoza wrote. “We must put our fiscal house in order. It is already too late. Action is needed now.”

Illinois Comptroller: "The State Can No Longer Function" | Zero Hedge

 

[MACAULAY]

The Obvious lesson to be learned here is:

Socialists never Learn.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Bush's Fault

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Putin hacked the Illinois budget

 

[whitehall]

Isn't Chicago Barry Hussein's adopted home town? Barry and the bomber shared responsibility for administering a private fund that was supposed to improve education. I wonder where the money went.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Iran....

 

[SassyIrishLass]

Here is the thing with Illinois, they have known for years this was an issue and did absolutely nothing to stem the bleeding.

It's time the people of Illinois woke up and smelled the coffee, democrat policy is a disaster

 

[Rexx Taylor]

i guess they need to change all of there welcome/entrance signs to "Welcome to Illinois",,,got any cash?

 

[Clementine]

Dems own this. Spending far exceeds revenue and they are billions short of what they need.


"As Illinois’ Chief Fiscal and Accountability Officer, my Office is responsible for managing the state’s financial accounts as well as providing the public and the state’s elected leadership with objective and timely data concerning the state’s difficult fiscal condition. As you are quite aware, I have been very vocal regarding these issues and the budgetary impasse since assuming office six months ago; however we are now reaching a new phase of crisis.

Accordingly, I must communicate to you at this time the full extent of our dire fiscal straits and the potential disruptions that we face in addressing even our most critical core responsibilities going forward into the new fiscal year. My Office has very serious concerns that, in the coming weeks, the State of Illinois will no longer be able to guarantee timely and predictable payments in a number of areas that we have to date managed (albeit with extreme difficulty) despite an unpaid bill backlog in excess of $15 billion and growing rapidly.

We are effectively hemorrhaging money as the state’s spending obligations have exceeded receipts by an average of over $600 million per month over the past year.

My cause for alarm is rooted in the increasing deficit spending combined with new and ongoing cash management demands stemming from decisions from state and federal courts, the latest being the class action lawsuit filed by advocates representing the Medicaid service population served by the state’s Managed Care Organizations (MCOs). As of June 15, the MCOs, and their provider networks, are owed a total of more than $2.8 billion in overdue bills at the Comptroller’s Office. There is no question that these obligations should be paid in a more timely manner and that the payment delays caused by the state’s financial condition negatively impact the state’s healthcare infrastructure. We are currently in court directed discussions to reach a workable and responsive payment schedule going forward, but any acceleration of the timing of those payments under the current circumstances will almost certainly affect the scheduling of other payments, regardless of other competing court orders and Illinois statutory mandates.

For the record, however, and as a message to the financial markets, please know that debt service payments will not be delayed or diminished going forward and I will use every statutory avenue or available resource to meet that commitment. It is a necessary pledge in order to attempt to avoid further damage to our already stressed credit ratings and to make possible the additional debt financing that we all know will be required to achieve some measure of stability going forward.

Ultimately it is the only way that we can preserve what remains of our ability to provide vital services to our state’s most at risk populations.

Currently, more than 90 percent of Illinois’ monthly spending is directed toward core functions of state government mandated by court orders, consent decrees, or state law including continuing appropriations. These include certain Medicaid programs, debt service, payroll, K-12 General State Aid and state pension contributions. With the inevitable cash management impact related to the outcome of the MCO lawsuit, this Office will soon be facing the prospect of deciding which court order or statutory mandate the state can accommodate. I hope we can all agree that this is more than an unprecedented situation; it is simply unacceptable."

https://illinoiscomptroller.gov/new...reaches-out-to-state-leadership/#.WUyfqYVFzIW

 

[kiwiman127]

I have one word for you; KANSAS.

 

[Clementine]

Illinois as an unpaid bill backlog of $15 billion and spending has exceeded revenue by $600 million a month for a year now.

 

[emilynghiem]

I have one word for you; KANSAS.

Clementine
I have a whole CONCEPT for refinancing state budgets.
It's called reinvesting all tax resources currently wasted
on failed PRISONS, criminal justice and mental health systems,
(including restitution owed to taxpayers for crime corruption
and racketeering/trafficking), and crediting this capital BACK
to taxpayers to invest in rebuilding LOCAL businesses, schools
and health care facilities to support the population demands.

By organizing each city, each county and/or each district
to assess what THEIR OWN LOCAL population needs to subsist as
a self-governing, sustainable economy and community,
then government becomes accountable directly to the people served.
So this helps CHECK the waste and abuse of resources,
when people are more DIRECLTY in charge of where their labor, income and taxes go.
.
The representatives of each level, whether by city district or county,
set up tax rewards system with taxpayers: agree to work together to cut all
causes and costs of crime, abuse, addiction and violence
that is running up prison and prosecution costs, and as each
locale increases its revenue (and reduces the tax money going toward
crime including both incarceration, medical care and housing, and welfare
for life for inmates otherwise unable to work) the SAVINGS is tracked and
invested in jobs, education, and facilities to provide health services and economic
growth on a sustainable basis.

This way, district are rewarded for working cost-effectively to cut costs
of crime abuse and waste; those taxpayers get to invest their taxes, income,
labor, donations investments or loans directly into developing their own districts and deduct the expenses from their taxes. Districts that are struggling will have to BORROW from other districts or investors, thus requiring business plans for
developing and paying back the loans. NO MORE CHARGING TAXPAYERS
FOR PROGRAMS RUN AMOK WITHOUT ANY ACCOUNTABILITY FOR LOSSES.

Districts with money already have business interests that can qualify for
tax deductions by investing locally in building teaching hospitals, campus
programs, and internship programs to offset costs of education by offering
student jobs and course credits for services provided to the community.
Such districts and business leaders with experience setting up sustainable
development can get greater tax credits by lending, investing and mentoring
to help other leaders and districts develop and follow successful business models.

Districts overrun by poverty and crime can be turned around by assessing
the debts and damages of crime and corruption, and allowing taxpayers
and communities victimized by these crimes to collect restitution, even in
the form of credits that can then be applied to funding jobs and programs
rebuilding these communities, where the wrongdoers are required to pay
back through financial penalties or lending their labor to restore the communities they injured.

We start with our distressed district, and partner between public schools and housing,
and businesses and colleges that can set up mentorship programs to turn even the
most indebted and damaged communities into safe sustainable campus cooperatives.

We can replicate these "campus town" models along the border to create
sustainable development, with housing education and job opportunities
organized by local populations, instead of letting poor communities get
overrun by poverty, crime and drug and human trafficking as we have now.

For consulting help on how to enforce RICO laws to reclaim property
from trafficking/organized crime as "restitution" for victims and communities,
contact Dottie Laster who volunteers with the Heidi Search Center in San Antonio.
www.lasterglobal.com

For a working model of setting up schools, daycares, or other community centers
in at risk districts to combat poverty and trafficking, see Pace Universal:
www.paceuniversal.com

here is the campus plan for converting public housing into
sustainable campus housing and educational services:
www.campusplan.org

The proposal to replicate this campus plan along the border is posted here
www.earnedamnesty.org

(If that's too complex or boring, here is the music video version
of taking that campus plan and converting sweatshops
and prisons into schools and work-study programs to protect workers:
www.rightsfortheworkers.org)

It's still ONE concept:
convert prison budgets and facilities into schools and medical programs.

By promoting better mental health treatment, screening, counseling and cure
instead of paying to keep people addicted to drugs, each
community can get "tax breaks and deductions" for
getting rid of crime and corruption that cost taxpayers billions per state,
and save those resources to create sustainable jobs, education,
health care and housing that are funded and supervised directly by taxpayers.

Get govt out of the loop, empower people to fund and run
their own local districts, based on the campus model of
combining housing and education with services, jobs and business development.

 

[Bush92]

This is what happens when you let Democrats control your state.
Associated Press

 

[william the wie]

Illinois has been headed for bankruptcy for something like a quarter of a century.

 

[SassyIrishLass]

Illinois has been headed for bankruptcy for something like a quarter of a century.

And did very little to avoid it.

 

[Bush92]

Illinois has been headed for bankruptcy for something like a quarter of a century.

Been Democratic almost exclusively since 1988. The will be going back red soon. Lost collar county conservative's and have never held downstate counties.

 

[william the wie]

Well Illinois has always been strange. It was made a state unconstitutionally for building the Michigan-Illinois canal which was less of an unneeded piece of crap than the earlier Erie-Ohio canal. It thus bailed out New York with its Erie canal that didn't get you anywhere but the Great Lakes Ice box without a canal to the Mississippi watershed, which the M&I kind of sort of provided.

 

[Bush92]

It is drawn up weird. Parts of southern Illinois sit farther south than Richmond, Virginia and were not fond of Lincoln during Civil War.

 

[william the wie]

Preaching to the Choir. I'm writing up an Alternate History Civil War I'm still trying to figure out how the two sides ended up not winning in 60 days or less.

 

[Bush92]

Best thing to happen to Illinois...EVER!!