Who will right Illinois' fiscal ship?

"You just can't spend like a bunch of drunken sailors all the time."

No, that wasn’t Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner or one of his Republican allies who said that, although it certainly would have been appropriate after Democrats passed a budget that would have the state spend $3 billion or $4 billion more than it expects to take in.

It was the state's former treasurer and comptroller, Judy Baar Topinka, who died late last year. Topinka’s remark came after Gov. George Ryan's 2002 budget address. Needless to say things have not gotten better in Illinois the past 13 years.

The state’s credit rating is in the pits, its pension liability is the worst in the country and it has been unable to pay its bills in a timely manner. The state’s population is declining because people are fleeing to seek better opportunities.

You would think that with all those negatives every lawmaker would be eager to find solutions, to work with anyone and everyone to improve the quality of life for all Illinoisans. That compromise and collaboration would be the words of the day instead of that other c-word: conflict. Yet conflict is what we have as Democrats and Republicans entrench themselves in their political bunkers.

Illinois’ is on its third governor since that “drunken sailors” quote, but has had only one speaker of the House in that time: Mike Madigan. Madigan has been in the Legislature more than 44 years and is the longest-serving speaker in state history, having held the position for all but two years since 1983.

Madigan worked well with Republican governors Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar and George Ryan and not so well with Democrats Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn. The optimists among us thought Rauner’s election would lead to the kind of cooperation Illinois saw during the Thompson-Edgar-Ryan era.

Alas, Madigan and Rauner seem welded to their agendas. Rauner has his “Turnaround Agenda” and Madigan has his … well, we’re not quite sure what his agenda is except to oppose the governor.

Rauner proposed a budget that included drastic cuts to social services, state universities and more. Democrats countered this week by passing an unbalanced budget. The governor wants reforms and Madigan has shot down those reforms. The governor asks for responsible spending and Madigan and his friends pass a budget that has a huge hole in it.

Reform and budget negotiations should not be separated, as Madigan wants. There’s no better time to discuss one because it affects the other. When politics works, it’s a give-and-take process. Surely there’s something Madigan is willing to give and Rauner is willing to take and vice versa.

You don’t have to buy into everything Rauner wants to acknowledge that Illinois must change to have a competitive economy in the 21st century.

The run-government-as-a-business mantra is overworked, but is appropriate in the sense that just as businesses must evolve to satisfy increasingly picky customers, government needs to adapt to deliver services taxpayers demand in the most cost-effective way. There’s only so much money to go around.

The General Assembly is supposed to conclude its business at the end of this month, but that appears unlikely as the Democrats who control the Legislature butt heads with the Republican governor voters elected to get the state back on track.

Out-of-whack. Reckless. Irresponsible. Phony. We hear a lot of bad words, many unprintable, about Illinois’ budget situation. What we don’t hear, see or read are “responsible” and “balanced” when it comes to a spending plan. Perhaps we never will.

Or perhaps it’s all just political theater so the two sides can appease their supporters. Perhaps they’ve worked out a deal that everyone can live with. Or perhaps we’ll need a bunch of sober sailors to right the ship.