Governor Bruce Rauner has hit a brick wall attempting to convince House Speaker Michael Madigan to come to the negotiating table to talk about ending the long governmental impasse and then working out a budget deal. So after holding numerous public appearances to demand a sit-down, Rauner shifted gears last week when the two Republican legislative leaders trotted out a new spending plan to provide $1.3 billion to fund human services and other programs.

The proposal would partly be funded with some pension reforms that Republicans claim will save $780 million. The reforms include some accounting changes and pushing off pension costs to local schools and to higher-education institutions for salaries above $180,000 a year. But there are relatively few employees making more than $180K a year, and the $780 million is about a third of the state’s annual “normal costs” for pensions, so it seems somewhat difficult to believe that these savings are actually as high as billed.

And even if the money is real, the $1.3-billion GOP proposal is significantly smaller than either appropriations bill passed by the legislature’s Democratic majorities. The Senate Democrats’ spending plan was pegged at about $3.8 billion, with half of that ($1.9 billion) going to social services.

Still, the bill could very well generate some interest among rank-and-file Democrats worried about the implosion of the state’s social safety net as a possible next step in the negotiating process. For instance, the legislation appropriates more than $10 million for the Adult Redeploy program, which diverts nonviolent offenders from prison terms. That money would come from the General Revenue Fund, but the legislation also uses money from special state funds to pay for programs popular with Democrats that aren’t currently being funded by the state, like homeless-youth services.

“He was a god in that district,” a high-level Rauner guy told me about state Senator Sam McCann’s poll numbers from before this year’s Republican-primary campaign began.

Benchmark polling taken months ago showed McCann (R-Plainview) had a voter-approval rating of about 70 percent. McCann “really was everywhere” in the Downstate district, attending events all over the place throughout his tenure, the Rauner official admitted.

Looking at those initial numbers, “you’d have to be crazy” to take McCann on, the official said. But the governor had threatened to punish any Republican who voted with AFSCME on a now-infamous bill that would have barred a state-employee strike and instead forced binding arbitration. McCann was the only Republican to vote against Rauner, so a massive game plan was devised.

What followed was the most expensive Republican legislative-primary race in the history of Illinois. In the past, the million dollars or so raised and spent by and on behalf of McCann would’ve dropped jaws everywhere. But McCann’s million was less than a quarter of the race’s $4.2-million grand total.

Even so, McCann defeated his Rauner-backed opponent, Bryce Benton, by more than 5 points.

“How do they sleep at night?”

It’s a question I’m asked a lot these days. The inquirers always wonder how Governor Bruce Rauner, House Speaker Michael Madigan, and their more full-throated enablers on both sides can live with themselves as they watch big chunks of state government’s responsibilities crumble before their very eyes during the months-long governmental impasse.

As far as I can tell, they’re sleeping pretty well. And both sides appear to be using almost the exact same coping strategies.

There are always two audiences for formal gubernatorial addresses: legislators who actually attend, and everyone outside the Statehouse who watch it or read about it later.

Governor Bruce Rauner’s budget address last week seemed far more designed for people outside the building, most of whom don’t really care about the intricacies of government finance. Most do, however, want to see everyone finally get along and end this eight-month governmental impasse, despite what you may read in online comment sections.

That’s probably why Rauner barely even talked about the budget. It’s no surprise why. For the first time since Illinois became a state in 1818, a governor has submitted a budget for the next fiscal year without having passed a budget for the current fiscal year.

The failure is not just an embarrassment. Tens of thousands of the most vulnerable Illinoisans are paying dearly. No budget means the state can’t help homeless teens, assist women with the trauma of a brutal rape, or help addicts kick heroin.

Tens of thousands more may have to drop out of college because state universities and a special scholarship program aren’t being funded. The majority African-American Chicago State University is perilously close to shutting down, as are Western Illinois University and Eastern Illinois University.

Even Rauner’s lines that some described as an “olive branch” to the Democratic legislative majority seemed aimed more at the folks back home.

Why? Well, words, even very kind words, are not going to be enough to get this done. The sides are simply too far apart, and now that election season has cranked up again, I’m not sure how this thing is going to be resolved.