Edgar Says Tough Times Ahead for State Gov't SPRINGFIELD, IL (wqub) - Jim Edgar says he remembers state politics getting ugly during the administrations of Dan Walker and, more recently, George Ryan. But the former Illinois governor says he's never seen it as bad as it is right now.


Edgar says there's little progress towards a budget agreement, downstate Illinois is being neglected, morale among state workers is low --- and Governor Blagojevich and the Democratic legislative leaders are too tied up in political feuding to do what has to be done.
The former governor told the Illinois News Broadcasters Convention in Springfield over the weekend that he fears any progress will have to wait until after Blagojevich leaves office. And he says the next governor will have to make hard decisions to fix the state's finances --- like the ones he made as governor in the early 1990s.


But Edgar says he worries that public confidence in state government may have fallen so low by then that the new governor will have trouble rallying support for the spending cuts and tax increases he believes may be necessary.
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