Republican State Senator Bill Brady kicked off his new gubernatorial campaign the other day by claiming that Illinois' horrific budget deficit can be "managed." But a new report by the governor's office makes that claim even less realistic that it already was.
As you already know, Democratic Comptroller Dan Hynes has estimated the state's budget deficit could reach $9 billion next fiscal year, not including aid from the federal stimulus package. We can toss those numbers out the window now, but this is all Brady had to go on when he announced his campaign, so let's look at it anyway.
Brady told WGN Radio the day before his official campaign kickoff that the budget deficit was about $4 billion to $5 billion "on an annual basis." That's pretty much exactly what Comptroller Hynes projected. Hynes included $4 billion or so in unpaid bills from this fiscal year in his $9-billion deficit projection for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
But Brady insisted that the budget deficit could be managed. "The first thing we need to do is to deal with that $4- to $5-billion deficit. And you can manage that. When you've got a $53-plus-billion budget, you need to manage it," Brady said.
