The budget - if you can call it that - that passed the General Assembly last week has as much as a $5-billion hole in it, borrows more than $7 billion from Wall Street and state vendors, disguises huge cuts to some private social-service agencies with 87-percent funding for others, and sets up the state for a surefire disaster next fiscal year.

Break out the party hats.

There is just no way on Earth that you can call that budget "balanced," or "serious-minded." It is, at best, a punt until next year. Actually, it's more like a blocked punt with a big loss of yardage.

"You guys are going to have to come up with a new conspiracy theory," Attorney General Lisa Madigan told Rockford Register-Star columnist Wally Haas last week about her decision to go for re-election and forgo runs for governor or U.S. Senate.

"I had it from a pretty good source as recently as Friday that she was going to run [for governor]," state Senator Brad Burzynski (R-Clare) told Haas about Ms. Madigan, adding: "It makes me wonder: What's [House Speaker Michael] Madigan's end game?"

So many people have assumed that Mike Madigan had sent this legislative session into overtime to somehow help his daughter become governor that they neglected to remember his long history as the House speaker.

Former House GOP leader Lee Daniels summed it up best to me not long ago: "Mike Madigan is Mike Madigan. He's one of the brightest leaders the state has ever had, but he's Mike Madigan. He's always been the way he is today."

Sen. Richard Durbin

Official website: http://durbin.senate.gov
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2152 Fax: 202-228-0400
Contact Dick Durbin via web

Sen. Charles Grassley

Official website: http://grassley.senate.gov
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3744 Fax: 202-224-6020
Contact Chuck Grassley via web