Dave Dahl -- Illinois Radio Network

A day of learning about property taxes – for spectators looking for entertainment, perhaps the equivalent of spinach? – featured some side dishes from the governor and the speaker of the House.

The Illinois Senate convened a “committee of the whole” to air out the problems of high property taxes and inequitable school funding. Republicans, including the governor, say it's all phony and ignores a perfectly good bill already ready to pass.

Trying to interpret one senator's questions, one witness turned to dessert to attempt to explain.

“If we don't increase the size of our pie, but just adjust the slices,” said Carol Portman, president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois,“you're not making the state bigger – you're not keeping the local static, you want to shrink the local and keep the pie total the same.”

What Gov. Bruce Rauner wanted to do Tuesday was host a news conference a few blocks away at the governor's mansion while the presentation went on at the Capitol.

He said House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) have made themselves wealthy men by working against the public interest. “They have a fundamental conflict of interest with the taxpayers,” the governor said. “We've got to talk candidly and fundamentally about the challenges that are in front of us.”

Madigan, at a news conference at the Capitol shortly after the governor's event, said Rauner's mistaken about some things: “Our law practice is concerned with correcting errors in assessments and not in what they call the extension of taxes.”

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