Michael J. Madigan. William Blake. Mark McGwire.
You might not see an obvious linkage between a longtime
Illinois politician, a seminal British poet and a former baseball slugger
indelibly linked to steroids.
I hadn’t either, frankly, until I listened to a recent
Sunday morning radio talk show as Madigan, Democratic Speaker of the Illinois
House of Representative, was interviewed by two reputable journalists. The
topic was Illinois’ dire state of financial affairs and Madigan’s current budget
stand-
off with newly elected Billionaire Governor, Republican Bruce Rauner.  |
| Michael J. Madigan |
Now, to level set, a little background is needed. Illinois
is the country’s 5th most populous state with nearly 13 million
people. It has the country’s third biggest city, Chicago. Currently, Illinois
is the country’s worst state financially, rated lowest by the 3 major bond
rating companies who each paint a negative outlook for the Land of Lincoln.
Their reasons include Illinois’ consistent record of
spending more money than it takes in and, among other sins, its
worst-in-the-nation public employee pension crisis with over $110 billion in
unfunded liability. By sheer coincidence, two recent Illinois governors – one
Democrat and one Republican – have ended up behind bars.
So, things are pretty bad. If Illinois were a single family
home, the banks would have taken the title back a long time ago. In considering
Illinois’ finances, the mind conjures up images of drunken sailors on shore
leave or perhaps a shopaholic carting home a trunk load of goods despite being
mired in a mountain of credit card debt.
Neither of these are exactly factual comparisons, but
they’re informative when you consider that the current political theater playing
out in Illinois state capital of Springfield is centered on how to close a $6.2
billion deficit.
Rauner ran and won office last fall vowing to reform a
corrupt and broken state. Madigan has countered, calling Rauner’s budget cuts
irresponsible and extreme. Both, of course, claim the protagonist role and cast
the other as the evil antagonist.
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| Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner |
OK, cut to Madigan and a recent WGN radio interview – one,
quite honestly, that every Illinois tax paying citizen should hear. In late May
as Illinois lawmakers were ready to end their spring session, veteran Chicago
Tribune journalist Rick Pearson and Illinois Public Radio’s Amanda Vinicky
spoke to Madigan for 20 minutes.
The 73-year-old Madigan, a man arguably locked in the battle
of his political career, used the airtime to robotically recite his position of
“moderation” in plotting a way out of Illinois’ financial death spiral. In
fact, he used the word “moderation” a full 8 times during the interview and
cast his nemesis Rauner as “extreme” a full 10 times.
With the steely swagger of a grizzled politician on the
campaign trail, Madigan calmly called for a “balanced approach” in solving the
fiscal crisis. He advised that everyone be “reasonable.” His words were so repetitive that in a
moment of frustration and candor, Pearson suggested in jest that if Illinois simply
taxed the word “moderation” then its financial woes might be solved.
For me this exchange conjured up the words of William Blake.
Odd, I know, but this stuff happens randomly for recovering English majors.
Back in college – many years ago at the University of Illinois, no less – I
studied Blake. In the “Proverbs of Hell” portion of this somehow fittingly titled
poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” Blake wrote,
 |
| William Blake |
“The road of excess leads to the
palace of wisdom…You never know what is enough until you
know what is more than
enough.”
Essentially, Blake
suggests that excess eventually begets moderation. Put another way – we don’t
know what’s enough until we know what’s too much.
Both Pearson and Vinicky must have been channeling their
inner Blake by asking Madigan whether, as the Speaker of the House for 30 of
the past 32 years, he should shoulder some of the blame for Illinois’ current
quagmire.
Madigan, with the skillful sidestep of a Spanish matador, evaded
the question entirely – not once, but twice. His red cape unfurled behind him
as he stood statue-like, each reporter roaring past him. Past excess?
Responsibility? Ole!
No, Madigan was not here to speak about how we got neck-deep
into this soup. He was taking to the airwaves to offer up bland, prefabricated
sound bites calling for “moderation” over “extremism.”
His tightly scripted words were meant to woo common,
middle-class folks and vilify ruthless Rauner, who is expected to tap into his considerable
billions to carpet bomb the TV airwaves with his own propaganda blasting
Madigan and his status quo cronies. Yes, this will get ugly.
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| "Sunday Spin" WGN Radio Broadcast with Madigan |
Madigan’s refrain in the interview was: “The number one
problem affecting the government of the state of Illinois is the budget deficit
and our accumulating debt. That’s why the focus should be on the elimination of
the deficit.”
Madigan believes Rauner is not playing fair by offering
“non-budget” issues like disability payments to injured workers and also
planning to save $2 billion in pension spending without having first put
forward a bill to make such a move legal.
Still, I see two notes of irony with Madigan’s statement:
- These words come from the decades-long most powerful man in Springfield who, critics suggest, has led the state headlong into the red and to the brink of the fiscal cliff.
- While he’s calling for a moderate path to clean up the spilled red ink of the past, Madigan solidly backs a $36.3 billion spending plan that he acknowledges is $3 billion underfunded. In other words, “Yeah, we need all of this money, but, my fellow citizen, we can’t afford $3 billion of it. So, can you float us another loan?”
I’m sorry – isn’t that how we got into this mess in the
first place? Or is that what Madigan is hoping we won’t remember? Is he hoping
to convince us that the past is in no way informative when trying to explain
the present? Does he really want us to believe his newfound fiscal
responsibility and his stance espousing “moderation” over “excess”?
 |
| Mark McGwire testifying before Congress |
For me, this is where Mark McGwire comes in. You probably
remember Muscular Mark of Major League Baseball, the homerun hitter who in 1998
demolished New York Yankee Roger Maris' long-standing single-season record for
home runs. McGwire and comrades Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco and
Rafael Palmeiro stand as the thick-necked figureheads of baseball’s Steroid
Era.
When McGwire sat before Congress in March 2005 to answer
questions about his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, his response
was, “I am not here to talk about the past.” It was McGwire’s own now-famous
matador-like reply, evading the Congressman’s question entirely. Ole!
McGwire, essentially said by his own omission that, “Yeah, I
juiced. I took steroids because, well, I wanted to hit homeruns.” How different
are McGwire and Madigan really? Are they Irish twins of sorts? To both men, the
past is the past, so let’s bury the inconvenient facts and avoid all questions
about their possible relevance.
Under questioning, both Madigan and McGwire ducked then promptly
called for a positive path forward…to make things better. This reasonable path,
they might argue, will lead us to a coveted palace of wisdom. But as Mr. Blake
told us over 200 years ago, destination “Moderation” often comes from
staggering along the winding, reckless, over-indulgent road of Excess.
Unfortunately, sooner or later, Illinois taxpayers are going
to be stuck picking up the tab for the joyride.
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