Statehouse Insider: A lot of talk, no action a Blagojevich trademark

So ex-Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH decided not to testify at his federal corruption trial after all. Come on now, who can honestly say they’re surprised?

For weeks leading up to the trial and even after it started, all we’ve heard from Blagojevich is how much he wanted to testify and how that would clear him. And now, pffft.

Blagojevich’s lawyers said ultimately it was his decision not to testify. Obviously, they counseled him on the prudent thing to do, but in the end, it was the braggart’s decision to chicken out.

But then, Blagojevich has a long history of making bold statements and not following through. It may not be the most important, but one instance that sticks out occurred in the summer of 2007. That’s when Blagojevich’s feud with House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN, D-Chicago, hit a high point.

The legislature and Blagojevich couldn’t agree on a new budget — again. The session dragged through June with no resolution. On the last day of the month, Blagojevich announced he would be calling special sessions every single day starting July 5 until the legislature approved a budget he deemed acceptable. Weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays, it didn’t matter.

Blagojevich said he wasn’t doing it to be punitive. He said he would have “a whole series of proposals to announce in the days and weeks ahead.”

Of course, it was more Blagojevich nonsense. He called special sessions every day for a while, but soon attendance dwindled. It wasn’t much more than a week later that Blagojevich gave lawmakers a day off when the Senate Democrats — his only remaining allies in the legislature — threatened mutiny.

And the “whole series of proposals?” Nada. It was just more talk from a guy who talks a lot.

It was that summer that prompted one House member to refer to Blagojevich as a “madman.” It was also the summer that Blagojevich sued Madigan over who had the power to call special sessions. Blagojevich won, kinda.

It was also the summer that lawmakers started talking openly about impeaching Blagojevich. It was mostly dismissed as overheated (and mainly partisan) rhetoric by lawmakers fed up with the governor’s antics. It would be another year before it became a reality.

* One of the lasting impressions to come out of the trial is the startling disconnect between Blagojevich and reality.

Here was a guy who thought he could be president of the United States. In fact, he thought he should be president.

But as the trial made clear, he was also a guy who thought a chief executive’s work week only needed to take up about eight hours of his time. He was also a guy who hid in the bathroom rather than have to deal with issues brought to him by his aides.

How could someone like that be a president? How could someone like that even be a Cabinet secretary, as his wish list also showed he wanted to be?

Only in Blagojevich’s own mind is how.

* Here’s something to chew on:

“The governor stated that the reductions were part of the continuing budgetary process by the state in response to economic conditions and federal actions, but he also indicated that the reduction in the state retirement contribution was a one-time action ...”

Don’t remember Gov. PAT QUINN saying that? He didn’t. The governor in question was JAMES THOMPSON. It’s how a newsletter distributed at the time by the State Employee Retirement System described what happened to pension funding in the state’s budget year that ran from July 1, 1981, to June 30, 1982.

You see, people aren’t kidding when they say the powers that be have been using pensions to balance the state budget for decades.

The newsletter went on to say that the funding reduction “will unquestionably” add to the unfunded liability, estimated to be a whopping $1.1 billion in June 1981. The auditor general’s office in a report this year said the unfunded liability was close to $17 billion.

At least the newsletter ended on an optimistic note. It said the “one-year reduction does not create a current, nor future, financial crisis in the Retirement Trust Fund.” If they had only known how often governors and lawmakers would come back to that one-time fix.

Doug Finke can be reached at 788-1527 or doug.finke@sj-r.com.