If you blinked you might have missed Quinn's speech

I guess the newspapers that criticized Quinn's long, rambling speech to the General Assembly last time will have to find something else to critique after his very short budget address. Personally, I prefer Quinn's free-form speaking style to Blagojevich's well rehearsed campaign speeches based on the cookie-cutter poll-tested strategy of appealing to seniors with health care and free bus rides. I always wondered if Blago hired the same messaging consultants as Hillary Clinton. I'm happy to have a Governor who's less rehearsed.

Quinn was smart to leave people with only two things to talk about. Now a small tax increase for education is the topic of the day.

Government is the top employer in Illinois. Government does create jobs, especially in downstate. A recession period when the private sector isn't creating jobs is the most sensible time to increase government spending to stimulate the economy. Cutting more jobs in the state's top sector, government, is economic suicide.

Springfield discovered that reality when we suffered a local recession after Blagojevich cut or moved thousands of government jobs. Sangamon is far from the only county where state government is the top employer. The economies of Champaign, McLean, Jackson, Macon and many more counties are on the line.

We have to stop living in George Bush fantasy land where tax cuts solve all problems and there's always some unspecified government waste that can mystically balance the budget. The General Assembly needs to grow a pair and finally stand up to the anti-tax fundamentalists.