Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. AP Photo/Seth Perlman

This isn’t a very polite sentiment. But here’s hoping Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton caught a serious case of indigestion from their July 4th bratwurst.

The idea of the three sharing a roll of Tums would provide a small measure of justice, given the immeasurable heartache they’ve created by their dismal failure to reach agreement on a sensible state budget.

There’s an old expression in government that “when elephants dance, ants should stay out of the grass.” A group of ants from Metro East called on us week before last, just prior to the June 30 close of the state’s fiscal year.

They were social service providers of last resort for people too poor to pay for counseling and treatment, but not poor enough to find their way into the state’s Medicaid program. They represent small not-for-profits that provide mental health and substance abuse services under state contracts.

They tried to stay away from Illinois’ dancing elephants (since Mssrs. Quinn, Madigan and Cullerton are all Democrats, perhaps the better term is dancing donkeys). But still they are getting crushed.

Now, with Illinois operating without a state budget, there’s no money for mental health services or medication. Provider organizations are furloughing and laying off employees. Many of their clients have no place to turn — except for state mental institutions or jail.

The governor and lawmakers went home for the Independence Day holiday, vowing to return for a special session set to begin July 14. But they’ve earned no time off, least of all for good behavior.

The state has a $9 billion deficit to fill — including huge debts carried over from the preceding budget year. Many state functions will continue, at least for the time being. But just before the holiday break, the governor vetoed a bill that would have continued funding state social services, albeit at dramatically lower levels.

He called the legislation “half baked.” The same term could be applied to Mr. Quinn’s ever-changing recipe for resolving the crisis.

There’s some good news in all this: Illinois politics are smash-mouth on a political level — at times insane. But they are eerily moderate on a policy level. Extremists on both the left and right seem to have little sway.

There’s broad consensus among Democrats and Republicans, for example, that the state has been fiscally irresponsible for decades — leading to what’s become an annual ritual of crisis management.
Iris Lav of the socially progressive but fiscally fastidious Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a private think tank, minces no words:

“Illinois spends more than it takes in even during healthy economic times . . . .To cover up these deficits it has to resort most years to budget gimmicks and trickery, ranging from shorting pension contributions to delaying payments to health care providers and nonprofits. That is no way to run a state.”

One of the big sticking points in budget negotiations has been the state’s huge obligations to public employee pension funds. Ms. Lav acknowledges the problem. But she argues that by national standards, overall state spending is moderate and that reform should focus on the state tax system — which dates back to the industrial age and places a relatively small burden on taxpayers.

Tom Johnson, a well-regarded former state budget official who now directs the fiscally conservative Illinois Federation of Taxpayers, concedes the state tax system is antiquated and should be reformed to — gasp! — reliably raise more revenue.

But he argues that most taxpayers face a heavy burden in property taxes. The big jobs at the state level, he says, are fixing the state pension system and slowing the growth in spending. Spending cuts, he emphasizes, need not be Draconian.

These are differences that can be bridged. But doing so requires Illinois political leaders to put everything on the table and focus on the state’s moderate political tradition — and to get over themselves.