After more than a decade of extreme scandal and gross government mismanagement, far too many Illinoisans seem to be wallowing or even perversely reveling in our state's embarrassing failures. Just try to point out a positive aspect of this state and you'll be shouted down by all sides as a naive homer.

But accentuating the positive is just what Governor Pat Quinn tried to do last week, and, man, was he ever hammered for it.

Putting aside all the resulting uproar for a moment, the governor's State of the State address was probably the best speech I've ever heard Quinn give, at least on a technical basis. It was well-written (his 2010 speech was horribly ad-libbed), well-delivered (he's given some real snoozers), and, as far as a State of the State speech goes, it hit all the right high notes.

Back when the reformers demanded that state campaign contributions be capped, they said it would limit the dollars flowing into Illinois political funds.

But, overall, contributions have only barely decreased from four years ago, according to a search of the State Board of Elections' database. That may have as much to do with the economy these days compared to what it was back then, when Illinois' unemployment rate was half what it is now. According to the search, about $55.6 million was contributed to campaigns during the last six months of 2011, while about $57.3 million went to campaigns during the same period four years earlier.

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan raised a total of $2.6 million for the three campaign funds he controls in just the last three months. Madigan now has a total of $4 million in cash, which puts him far ahead of anybody else in politics. Four years ago at this time (the same point in our national and state election cycles), Madigan had $1.3 million in cash reserves. There were no contribution caps four years ago.

And a whole bunch of money is avoiding the new contribution limits by being spread around to newly formed political action committees and to some little local committees that have never before seen much, if any, activity.

He didn't come out and say it, but Governor Pat Quinn has apparently abandoned his promise to allow the "temporary" income-tax hikes to expire three years from now.

The governor submitted a three-year revenue and spending projection last week as he's required to do by a new Illinois law. The bottom line of Quinn's projection is that revenues are simply not high enough to match what Quinn wants to spend. According to the governor's projections, the state will finish this fiscal year with a $507-million deficit, despite the recent tax hikes.

A massive turnaround in the Illinois House may have whetted political appetites for even more corporate tax relief. But don't count on it just yet.

As you may recall, a tax-cut plan for corporations and individuals failed miserably in the House a few weeks ago, getting eight votes - comically short of the 60 needed for passage.

So the House went home for two weeks and some intense lobbying began. When state representatives came back to Springfield, a slightly revised version of the corporate-tax-cut plan passed with a whopping 81 votes. The bill will grant large tax breaks to CME Group and Sears to keep them from leaving the state, as well as a few broad-based provisions.