SPRINGFIELD | Given Gov. Rod Blagojevich's love of baseball, its no surprise his latest financial rescue plan brings to mind Yogi Berra.
It's deja vu all over again.
Faced with a budget that may be more than $1 billion out of whack, Blagojevich is again proposing to squeeze money out of corporations.
This week, his budget office said there are at least a dozen tax breaks that could be ended in order to shore up the state's shaky financial foundation.
Among them is a proposal that would generate $65 million by changing the way companies are taxed when they buy software.
The idea is same as one the governor floated in 2004, only to see the General Assembly reject it.
On Wednesday, Blagojevich is set to unveil his budget plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1. But he faces a more immediate problem. With little more than four months to go in the current fiscal year, there is not enough money rolling into the state to pay current bills.
State Comptroller Dan Hynes has sounded the warning for the past month, saying the state cannot continue to delay the payment of bills to state vendors who provide services to the poor, the disabled and the unemployed.
The General Assembly's fiscal forecasting agency also has raised red flags, saying a downturn in the national economy will hurt what may have been overly ambitious revenue estimates.
The situation concerns lawmakers, who have been blamed for the current shortfall.
Katherine Ridgway, spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue, said the budget was approved "with inflated revenue estimates," which has resulted in the state spending more money than it has.
The governor vetoed more than $400 million in spending that had been set aside by lawmakers for local projects and programs. In addition, the administration has been operating under an unofficial hiring freeze.
But, even with that, Blagojevich acknowledges that the state will still be millions of dollars short at the end of the fiscal year.
The Illinois Department of Revenue estimates that closing the so-called "corporate loopholes" would generate $622 million.
-- Kurt Erickson can be reached at kurt.erickson@lee.net or (217) 789-0865.
