Rauner sharpens rhetoric day after pension vote

Wealthy Republican candidate Bruce Rauner blasted Springfield lawmakers today for “patting themselves on the back” for passing a controversial pension bill, arguing that the legislation does “far too little to fix our pension mess.”

The remarks, made through a spokesman to the Chicago Sun-Times, ratchets up the rhetoric on what’s promising to be an ongoing battle over a pension deal that’s seen as a political win for Gov. Pat Quinn but angered union members and retirees. On Tuesday, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan charged that Rauner was being “disingenuous” on the pension issue and that he now lost out on a campaign issue.

“The Springfield insiders are all patting themselves on the back today because they think they fixed their political problems,” Rauner said in a statement. “Illinois voters are smarter than that — they know an ineffective insider deal when they see one, because, unfortunately, that’s all they’ve seen from Springfield for decades.”

Rauner’s campaign charges that the legislation “shows that this was all about politics for the Springfield insiders and party bosses who approved it. The law does far too little to fix our pension mess, not to mention our enormous unemployment rate, and our out of control tax rates.”