As you might know already, Moody's earlier this month slapped Illinois with the worst credit rating of any state in the nation. But while Moody's report was damaging, S&P's rating was far more negative about the state's future.

Moody's cited Illinois' "weak management practices" as one reason for its ratings downgrade. The state's failure to implement any pension-funding reforms and to pay off its mountain of overdue bills were the two top reasons for the downgrade. But Moody's moved Illinois from a "negative" to a "stable" outlook for the future.

Fox Chicago News quoted a spokesperson for Governor Pat Quinn saying that the Moody's rating drop was an "outlier" because ratings agencies S&P and Fitch had decided not to lower the state's credit rating last week. On the surface, that's true. Underneath, not so much. Trouble is, S&P's rating contained much harsher language about Illinois' credit future, the agency also put Illinois on negative watch, and it issued a sternly worded warning that the state is in danger of another ratings downgrade this year.

I talked with former state Senator Howie Carroll last week about the proposal by state Representative Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) to kick Chicago and suburban Cook County out of Illinois. Mitchell's resolution has just a tiny number of co-sponsors, but he's managed to get himself lots of statewide and national media coverage, and he clearly appears to be enjoying his 15 minutes of fame claiming that his region of the state is tired of paying for Chicago's liberal programs.

Carroll knows all too well about breaking the state in two because he sponsored just such a resolution back in 1981. Carroll, a Chicago Democrat, proposed to make Cook County a separate state. According to newspaper accounts from the time, the resolution was introduced in the midst of heated fighting between Chicago-area and Downstate legislators over funding for mass transit.

"I ... I ... I ... I ... I couldn't fathom what I would say to those two girls," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald stammered last week when asked what he would say to Rod Blagojevich's daughters after our former governor was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

It was impossible not to think of those little girls last week. Even some of the most hardened, partisan Republicans I know felt no joy at Blagojevich's long prison sentence because of those kids. I don't know the children well, but I did spend some time with them a few years back and thought they were good kids, even normal kids, despite their father's position at the time and the overall weirdness of their situation.

You may have read the stories about how next year's mandatory state-pension payment will rise by a whopping $1 billion.

The new numbers show the state's total pension payment, with debt service, will be more than $7.4 billion next fiscal year. This year's pension payment was originally set at $6.4 billion back in March but is now $6.5 billion.

Not including federal money, the state budget is around $30 billion. So one out of every four state tax dollars spent next year will go to the pension funds, and every last penny from January's "temporary" state-income-tax increase will be used for that pension payment next year.