Governor Bruce Rauner has met with dozens of state legislators both individually and in small groups since his election. By all accounts, every meeting has been cordial, and he has scored lots of points with legislators who aren't accustomed to this sort of gubernatorial attention.

Then he had the Senate Black Caucus over to the governor's mansion for breakfast.

It started out well enough, but things turned south in a hurry when Rauner said he couldn't accept the Senate Democratic majority's stand-alone proposal to patch about $600 million of the current fiscal year's $1.6-billion budget deficit with transfers from special state funds. He wanted, he said, an "all or nothing" solution.

After he was elected governor but before he was sworn in to office, Bruce Rauner repeatedly lambasted Governor Pat Quinn and the legislative Democrats for passing a "booby trap" budget that was about to blow up in the state's collective face.

Rauner was absolutely right. Last year's budget was irresponsible and didn't deal with the reality of the expiring income-tax hike. As a result, the state's budget is in a terribly deep hole right now.

But did Governor Rauner really make all the "tough choices" necessary to get us out of that hole during his budget address, as he promised he would? Well, he sure proposed a lot of cuts. But he planted at least one major booby trap himself.

I don't believe I've ever seen a governor openly and loudly laughed at on the House floor. At least not while he was present.

Governor Bruce Rauner was doing pretty well with his legislative audience during his first State of the State address last week, delivering strong applause lines with his refreshing calls for bipartisanship. He even thanked legislators "for your service," and predicted they would do "great" things together. He warned them that he would say things they liked and didn't like and urged them to see the "big picture" - which he claimed will "lift up all of the people we've been chosen to represent."

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus were especially receptive to the governor's attacks on labor-union apprenticeship programs. Rauner claimed about "80 percent of individuals in Illinois apprenticeship programs are white even though Caucasians make up fewer than 63 percent of our population," and demanded that be addressed with legislation. Black and Latino legislators have tried for years with limited success to break those barriers, and no governor has ever so clearly sided with them.

Legislators erupted in loud applause when the governor proposed raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. But when Rauner added "over seven years," their laughter was even louder, and longer. Democrats appeared to realize that they might've fallen for a bait and switch, and it was mostly downhill from that point on.

Governor Bruce Rauner didn't completely close the door to higher taxes last week during a speech at the University of Chicago, but he made it clear with what he said and what he did that he wants huge state budget cuts.

"We have every reason to thrive," Rauner said during the speech. He then laid out his reasoning for why the state is on a "fundamentally unsustainable path," pointing his finger at the "policies and the politics mostly coming out of Springfield really at the core of the problem. ...

"The politicians want to talk about 'Well, let's raise the income tax to fix the debt or the problem," Rauner said. "Raising taxes will come nowhere near to fixing the problem and in fact will make part of the problem worse and just kick the can down the road. ... This is the critical lesson that we're seeing. We're on an unsustainable path, we need fundamental structural change, and raising taxes alone in itself isn't going to fix the problem and in a lot of ways it's going to make it worse."