The transcript of a 60 Minutes report with the above title from late last year still reads well – a partial excerpt is below. Just note, too, that the Illinois problems noted here were the state of the state WHEN THE ILLINOIS REPUBLICAN PARTY FAILED TO TAKE POWER IN A NATIONAL GOP-LANDSLIDE YEAR!
And nowhere has the reckoning been as bad as it is in Illinois, a state that spends twice much as it collects in taxes and is unable to pay its bills.
(CBS) “This is the state of affairs in Illinois. Is not pretty,” Illinois state Comptroller Dan Hynes told Kroft.
Hynes is the state’s paymaster. He currently has about $5 billion in outstanding bills in his office and not enough money in the state’s coffers to pay them. He says they’re six months behind.
“How many people do you have clamoring for money?” Kroft asked.
“It’s fair to say that there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be paid by the state,” Hynes said.
Asked how these people are getting by considering they’re not getting paid by the state, Hynes said, “Well, that’s the tragedy. People borrow money. They borrow in order to get by until the state pays them.”
“They’re subsidizing the state. They’re giving the state a float,” Kroft remarked.
“Exactly,” Hynes agreed.
“And who do you owe that money to?” Kroft asked.
“Pretty much anybody who has any interaction with state government, we owe money to,” Hynes said.
“The state’s a deadbeat,” Kroft remarked.
“Yeah. I mean, the state of Illinois is known as a deadbeat state. This is a reputation that has taken us years to earn and we’ve reached, you know, the heights of, I think, becoming the worst in the country,” Hynes said.
