While a $34 billion budget passed the Illinois Senate Wednesday evening, the debate was so partisan that State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) made up a word.
 
“The whole budget package is … ‘Blagojevochian.’”
 
The Republicans’ chief “budgeteer” in the Senate, Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine), says the Senate Democrats’ plan calls for more spending than a House plan and the governor’s proposal, too. He says the spending is so out of control that the two percentage point increase the legislature passed in 2011 will have to become permanent. State Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), a budget sponsor, said that would take an affirmative vote on a new bill.
 
Steans, like other Senate Democrats, is unimpressed with the minority party’s complaints: “We’d ask for the Senate Republicans to develop a budget proposal … instead of worrying just about a revenue number in Fiscal Year (2016).”
 
The House is working on a budget plan of its own. The legislature is scheduled to adjourn May 31. The state’s new fiscal year starts July 1.
 
Three bills comprise the Senate’s version of the budget:
SB 2404 has passed the Senate, 33-24.
SB 2455 has passed the Senate, 34-24.

(Posted on 5/24/2012 at 6:27am, Illinois Radio Network)
SB 2461 has passed the Senate, 34-23.