Top 5 Reasons Why Pennsylvania Offers No Hope for Illinois Budget Crisis

Until this week, Illinois and Pennsylvania shared a spot in the national news cycle as the only two states to make into the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2016 with no operating budget in place.

Now Pennsylvania has left the Illinois budget impasse alone in the fiscal dysfunction spotlight, as Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced he’ll allow a budget approved by Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled General Assembly to become law as of 12:01 a.m. March 28.

Identifying parallels between the budget struggles of Pennsylvania and Illinois — two states of similar size and demographics with partisan divides between governors and legislatures — made for a tempting narrative over the past eight months. Unfortunately, those looking to extend those parallels beyond the twin impasses likely are out of luck. There’s almost nothing in Pennsylvania’s budget resolution that signals a similar path for Illinois.

Still, the narrative is too tempting to ignore, so here are five things that make the Illinois budget impasse more intractable than Pennsylvania’s.

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