It appears that the Illinois State Rifle Association released some highly questionable poll results last week because top officials learned that a gun-control group was doing its own polling. The Rifle Association decided it wanted to get ahead of the curve, I'm told.

The Rifle Association claimed its poll results showed broad support in a handful of legislative districts for the right to carry a concealed weapon in Illinois, even in two African-American Chicago Senate districts. But there are serious problems about the way the questions were asked, including the fact that the phrase "concealed carry" was never even mentioned in the poll, despite a Rifle Association press release claiming it was. Concealed carry is one of the hottest issues of the spring legislative session.

The poll asked three very leading, loaded questions before getting to the carry issue. Respondents were asked if they felt safe walking around their neighborhood, if they believed local police can protect them from being "robbed or assaulted," and whether they believed they have a "right to defend yourself and your family from murderers, robbers, and rapists."

A big question on a lot of Statehouse minds right now is: Why would Senate President John Cullerton all of a sudden decide to string out his members yet again on a dollar-a-pack cigarette tax hike when he surely knows that the House will kill it for the umpteenth time?

Cullerton wants to raise money from the cigarette tax so he can kill off the controversial law legalizing video gaming in taverns, clubs, and truck stops. Video-gaming proceeds are supposed to subsidize part of the state's massive capital-construction plan, but the video-gaming program hasn't got off the ground after two years of preparations because the Illinois Gaming Board is taking its time to develop strict standards.

Part of the answer is that Cullerton loves the cigarette-tax-hike idea in and of itself. The man just downright loathes cigarettes and believes that raising the tax would cause people to stop smoking and prevent kids from starting.

But when the four legislative leaders sit down to cut a deal, they're supposed to stick to that deal unless the other leaders go along. The capital plan was just such an agreement. Breaking a pact like that is just not done. Ever.

If you thought that Illinois government might get a tiny breather after raising income taxes, think again.

The Illinois House's new revenue projection for next fiscal year, which begins in July, is $759 million lower than the governor's. And the House's forecast is also $2.2 billion below Governor Pat Quinn's projected spending for the coming fiscal year.

Quinn's proposed budget was whacked last month by Democrats and Republicans alike for its brutal slashing of several human-service programs. But even with those Quinn cuts, if the House revenue forecast is used in the final product, they'll still have to find $2.2 billion in additional spending reductions.

The bad news doesn't end there. According to some revised numbers issued by the auditor general this past Friday, next year's required state pension payment, including debt service, will be $6.2 billion.

Child-care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state's child-care-services budget after speaking with top officials in Governor Pat Quinn's office earlier this month. And the governor's budget office then told a Senate appropriations committee that no such cuts were being planned.

But when the governor last week unveiled his proposed budget for next fiscal year, he included a $350-million net cut in child-care spending, according to the House Democrats' analysis of the proposal.