Despite a long Illinois tradition of supporting them, it's not exactly news that Republican members of the General Assembly no longer like voting for taxes of any kind. And that attitude created a couple of somewhat absurd positions last week.

Let's start with the "roll your own" bill. Legislation has been proposed to tax a growing practice of allowing people to use commercial machines to roll their own cigarettes in convenience stores and gas stations.

The stores sell their customers loose, bulk tobacco and then the customers dump the product into special rolling machines, which cost several thousand dollars each. The result is a per-carton sale price that is about half the price of a pre-rolled carton of brand-name cigarettes, mainly because the taxes on loose tobacco are much lower than on commercial cigarettes.

Back when Jim Edgar was governor, reporters covering his annual budget speech would always approach Senate President Pate Philip as he descended from the House Speaker's podium after the address to ask about his fellow Republican's proposals. Eventually, or even right away, we'd hear an emphatic "No!" from Pate and then we'd pronounce a good chunk of the budget dead on arrival.

Times were simpler back then than they were last week after Governor Pat Quinn finished his latest budget address. Quinn's proposal "benefited" from the lack of any major specifics on the big issues of the day: the exploding costs of Medicaid and pensions. The only things left to attack were program cuts and facility closures - and Republicans who did so risked being labeled as false budget hawks. Then there's the phony complaint that spending was actually rising. (Overall operating expenditures are falling, but total state spending is going up mainly because pension payments are rising by about a billion dollars next fiscal year.)

Governor Pat Quinn outlined a plan last week to reform the state's troubled pension systems. In doing so, Quinn appeared to outright reject some pension ideas offered up by House Republican Leader Tom Cross and Senate President John Cullerton.

The governor said pension-reform negotiations, which have dragged on for well over a year, are in need of a fresh start. Republican Leader Cross' reform proposal raises employee pension contributions to force public employees into either a lower-cost system or to a 401(k)-style plan. The state's pension plans have billions of dollars in what's called unfunded liability, and the idea is to lower that liability by reducing retiree pension payouts.

The governor all but said Leader Cross' plan, which is hotly opposed by labor unions, needed to be tossed out. "I don't think there's a lot of enthusiasm by members of either party and either house for that particular bill," the governor said. "We're going to start from scratch, and everybody will have a voice and we'll get to a good place."

Last week, powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared to all but endorse an idea to force Downstate and suburban school districts to pay a significant share of their state pension contributions for the first time in anyone's memory.

Senate President John Cullerton floated that very proposal last year, and Governor Pat Quinn added his support not long ago.

Needless to say, if all three Democratic leaders are talking about it, you can probably expect some action this year. However, there will be strong pushback from suburban and Downstate legislators who'll undoubtedly fear a voter backlash over potentially massive local tax increases to pay for the idea.