In an exclusive interview last week, CME Group Executive Chair Terry Duffy said he's more than ready to leave Illinois if he doesn't get what he believes is a "fair" tax deal from the General Assembly.

The company owns the Chicago Board of Trade and several other firms. It's a very big wheel in this state, and leaving would be the worst sort of news for Democrats who raised taxes this year.

Duffy has been under intense pressure all year from Wall Street to reduce expenses. State taxes are listed as expenses on corporate books, so Duffy has been publicly fuming about his company's $150-million-a-year state-tax burden since corporate tax rates were increased.

Duffy claims CME pays 6 percent of all corporate income taxes in Illinois, and pays more than any other company. "I don't know another company in the world that pays 6 percent of another state's taxes."

It's long been a tenet of public opinion that voters want the government to cut its budget and don't want new revenues, but also don't want any actual programs slashed.

However, the latest Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll shows a slow but sure trend in favor of specific state budget cuts and revenue increases.

A large majority of Illinoisans do still believe in magic. According to the poll, 58 percent say the state budget can be balanced by cutting waste and inefficiency. And because of this belief in an utter fantasy world where fairies reign and pixie dust solves all our problems, too few want to actually cut state spending programs.

Pat Quinn has been trying to get rid of Illinois Power Agency (IPA) Director Mark Pruitt almost since the day the governor was sworn into office. He finally did it, but the move is backfiring.

The governor is a big cheerleader for alternative power sources such as wind and solar. But Pruitt, whose main job is negotiating contracts with electricity generators on behalf of consumers, refused to sign some alt-energy contracts because they'd cost consumers too much money.

Pruitt's IPA was created after mega utility ComEd announced that it intended to buy electricity via a weird reverse auction system that was roundly slammed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan and every other reasonable political leader in Illinois. As a result, Pruitt claims to have saved Illinois electricity consumers $1.6 billion since 2007, and he has the numbers to back him up.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: Legislators don't lose elections over what happens at the Statehouse; they lose because they don't take care of business back home.

There's a lot of truth to that. Visible, accessible legislators with topnotch constituent services usually don't lose elections. If you look at the roster of losing Democrats in 2010, you'll see a bunch of incumbents who became invisible in their districts, or let things slide. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course. Nothing approaches universality in the political business. Some districts change, some people are elected as onetime flukes. But constituent services are all-important. Period. End of story.

In most parts of the state, however, taking care of the home front means making sure that local political and business powers are constantly stroked. And this is where members have often gone too far, particularly with the legislative scholarship program. The number of city, Downstate, and suburban party chairs, precinct captains, fundraisers, and other honchos who have "absolutely brilliant children totally deserving of these scholarships" has been a constant refrain. It is probably the most abused program in all of state government.