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.

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.

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.

As you might know already, Moody’s earlier this month slapped Illinois with the worst credit rating of any state in the nation. But while Moody’s report was damaging, S&P’s rating was far more negative about the state’s future.

Moody’s cited Illinois’ “weak management practices” as one reason for its ratings downgrade. The state’s failure to implement any pension-funding reforms and to pay off its mountain of overdue bills were the two top reasons for the downgrade. But Moody’s moved Illinois from a “negative” to a “stable” outlook for the future.

Fox Chicago News quoted a spokesperson for Governor Pat Quinn saying that the Moody’s rating drop was an “outlier” because ratings agencies S&P and Fitch had decided not to lower the state’s credit rating last week. On the surface, that’s true. Underneath, not so much. Trouble is, S&P’s rating contained much harsher language about Illinois’ credit future, the agency also put Illinois on negative watch, and it issued a sternly worded warning that the state is in danger of another ratings downgrade this year.

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.