Rich Miller: Both Sides Need To Compromise ‘Without Hurting More People’
Republican Govenor Bruce Rauner continues to battle with Democrats in the General Assembly over the state budget. (Seth Perlman/AP)
Few people in Springfield know Illinois politics better than Rich Miller. In 1993, after working for a few years for a company that collected legislative information for lobbyists, Miller started a political newsletter called Capitol Fax. As it grew, he expanded to include the website capitolfax.com, and now has well over a thousand annual subscribers, plus many others who read Miller’s free content online.
Illinois Public Media's Brian Moline talked with Miller on Monday, shortly after the governor's office announced that it was restoring eligibilty for thousands of families to the state's Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Miller says this was a significant announcement.
"This is a pretty major thing," Miller said. "This will put maybe about 85,000 kids back on the program. They (the General Assembly) were loaded for bear on this child care stuff, so the governor's office spent most of the weekend negotiating."
Miller says Governor Rauner and Speaker Madigan should heed the advice of former governor Jim Edgar.
"It would be nice if they could set this stuff aside and focus on what governor Edgar called 'the doable,'" Miller said. "If you're going to throw doable out the window, then nothing will be done. Both sides need to start thinking about that, and thinking about what they can actually get done without hurting more people."