>> Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us on the weekend review.

I Brandis Friedman, Bloomberg has the evening off.

The clock is ticking as the deadline to pass a new state budget fast approaches.

Springfield lawmakers scramble to finalize a new spending plan as Governor JB Pritzker promises to veto any proposal that includes broad-based new taxes.

>> To address a billion dollar budget hole.

I've been pretty clear with everybody that, you know, individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, sales taxes.

We're not about.

>> Razing those taxes at all.

I would veto a bill that does that.

>> But Illinois Republicans blasted budget process.

They describe as broken and opaque.

Well, other states have taken steps towards responsible, transparent fiscal management.

Illinois continues to operate in the shadows.

Illinois lawmakers also introduce a much anticipated Bill that would reform Chicago's public transportation system.

But skepticism remains over how it will be funded.

If we don't do this.

It's been laid out.

40% cuts to service.

More than 3,000 public transit workers.

We'll get pink slips.

And the mayor.

And that we believe is not an option.

Meanwhile, a watchdog report finds the CTA paid out more than 1 million dollars over the past 5 years to employees for remote work.

>> Despite the fact that their work could not be done remotely.

And amid a flurry of pardons, President Donald Trump commutes the sentence of gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover in prison since 1973.

>> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are violent Miller from the Chicago Sun-Times, Rufus Williams from W Vo in Dan, The WBEZ and joining us from Springfield View, Zoom Jeremy Goerner of the Chicago Tribune.

So welcome in Game.

Thank you all for being here.

Jeremy, you are still in Springfield.

So let's get to it.

What is the latest on the budget?

>> Well, we're still waiting that.

Obviously, we do it.

You know, we're in the final the final day, really Vo final 2 days of the spring legislative session going into final week stated on my face, budget deficit of around a billion dollars that a billion dollars lawmakers tried to spent the week to plug.

And it's anybody's guess where they're gonna plug another going to be cuts to services.

Are there going to be You know, you these are in the revenue enhancements like possible tax increases.

Are they going to have to do short term borrowing, which could maybe or the credit rating.

If we do that, it's really anybody's guess what they're doing.

State officials and lawmakers really are kind of moment.

A lot of the details.

But, you know, like the clip that you played earlier, Governor Pritzker is basically vowed to not have any broad-based taxes on that.

You know, sales tax income tax, the court, corporate taxes.

Those are the big taxes that a lot of people care about might affect regular working people.

you know, you know, a lot lawmakers have opined that it's really going to be hard to balance the budget without some sort of revenue enhancement that, you know, who knows could possibly raise some taxes, whether that actually trickles down to the average working person.

That remains to be Lawmakers currently are behind closed doors, trying to put the finishing touches on a budget proposal after spending a couple of months analyzing Governor Pritzker's.

55 billion dollar spending plan that he unveiled in February it.

you know, so it's really going to be kind of anybody's guess now.

What?

What?

What's coming to that?

again, Pritzker has said that he would veto a budget if there are, you know, broad-based tax increases depending who you talk to the legislature.

Broad-based is kind of a subjective term.

So we'll see what happens.

We do know we do know one thing for certain.

You know, one hot, you know, big ticket item that we've heard a lot about, is it healthcare for non citizens for non citizens, adults under the age of 65.

We know that that is a multi, you know, it's program that costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

That program has is probably going to be cut from this budget.

We do know that there still would be likely.

still, you know, healthcare and sons for the undocumented and for the most vulnerable undocumented, you know, over 65 from what we're hearing.

But that's really kind we're getting right now.

Like we said.

But you could drop at any You know, it's going to be interesting couple of hours.

>> so a lot to work And, you know, tomorrow is the deadline because another thing that they are, of course, having to figure out, Jeremy, is lawmakers are making some headway.

It seems on public transit will reform.

bill has been introduced to lawmakers say will address that expected 771 million dollars shortfall as the COVID relief funds run out.

What is the latest in transit proposal and how it's being funded?

>> What we're seeing some opposition, you know, so far, the Senate introduced the bill yesterday couple days ago.

It was talk a lot about yesterday.

It would mandate 10 million dollars transit related savings.

20 million dollars in savings on labor.

What this all means to the average person does that, you know, there could be, you know, this could mean, you know, layoffs in the transit system, particularly the CTA.

This is something that in one of you know, one of the committees yesterday where, you know that CTA and, you know, been very concerned about, of course, regional Transportation Authority that oversees all of this has raised concern that a lot of the money that's being proposed to plug the fiscal cliff is not going for operational expenses, which is what's really crucial here.

When you're talking about the trains running on time.

And, you know, you know, and everything that you know that dealing with, you know, how much it's going to cost to ride the train, ride, the buses fare information and all that stuff.

So they're still disputes over that.

You of what's been proposed is 50 surcharge of $0.50 on roads operated by the Illinois Tollway that would pay for some of this.

And then there's also a proposal that would include a 10% tax on rideshare trips in suburban Chicago, suburban Cook County in the collar counties.

Uber has come out against this so far.

The regional transportation authority is coming up against the so far.

So we do lawmakers again with everything here in Springfield.

They're behind closed doors, really trying to hammer something out.

you know, we're in the final days, final 2 days in the final hours for today.

>> So, OK, so part of the plan, as you mentioned, involves replacing RTA with an entity called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority.

Yes, yeah, Dan, I want to bring in the studio in as well.

Be on the name change.

What with this new agency do?

>> Yeah, I mean, they're really talking about 3 different agencies, right?

Pace, Madras, ETA, and they're talking about creating an agency that eliminate, you know, presumably redundancies in management want that.

But is that really going to save you nearly as much money is what you need with the look at the broader context seat.

He's not running all that well last few years, obviously the money that came in during COVID-19 is is not going to be coming in anymore.

And so does this.

project to merge them all into one agency.

Is it is it really going to say that much money?

Is it a power grab?

There's some concern from the collar counties, for instance, that they're not going to have enough power in this set up because if the mayor and the Cook County Board president will be able to appoint a lot the members of the new that are directing the new agency.

So, yeah, I think it's really up in the air as to whether this is some kind of Carol.

But, you know, you know, you have a that's just not functioning, for instance, the way it used to.

And at the same time, you know, an expansion of the red line, which has been a key issue for transit equity for Southside of Chicago and into the south suburbs for for many, many decades.

are they able to maintain the system that they have it in the in the context that we have right now where a lot of people are using in a ride shares like Uber that that Jeremy mentioned.

So I don't know that this is really a silver bullet for the financial problems that they have, which are in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

And as you both mentioned, suburban lawmakers in the collar counties, they're not really happy with it are th air Kirk Dillard says the math isn't mapping of labor.

Unions are skeptical as well.

Rufus T think that they're gonna make any progress with solving this problem.

Tell, you know, it seems to be other issues like service and safety that are really important to people.

Certainly here in Chicago, we get into these collars.

>> When we start to think about how you move this regional transit system forward, how you get to a place.

>> We don't have a different car.

Any time you get on a different system, how you make all these things work they're going to think fix it.

You know, Mike is about to get more expensive for us.

And each time we look in here, there's a billion dollars as a billion dollars in the state budget that they're short.

There's 771 million dollars here.

There was a billion dollars in the city.

There's a billion dollars in the school was about to get really expensive amongst all these things.

And how does any of fixed?

It sounds like somehow it's going to be back on us.

>> So also in Springfield, Jeremy, the House passed a bill that would allow terminally ill people to end their lives with the assistance of a physician.

What has been the response to this if it passed in the House?

Is this gonna make it to the Senate?

Also?

>> Yeah, it's going to be very hard to tell me this is a bill that was floated around last session.

2, you know, obviously, you know, it is, you know, there's a lot of them high emotions on both ends of the issue.

You know, you know what, this bill it passed 63 to 42 yesterday in the House.

Only 3 votes more than the minimum simple majority that it needed.

So really a kind of barely passed there.

Even a handful of Democrats, you know, by the control the General Assembly, there are a handful of Democrats said that sided with Republicans voting against it.

And basically what this would do is this what allowed to meet with terminally ill adults to be prescribed end of life medication from attending physicians?

Basically, there's there's certain thresholds.

They have to have 6 months to live.

They have to be mentally sound there.

They basically there has to be strict assurances where they have to be pretty much formally asked by the attending physician by the doctor.

Thursday are more than You know, you know, whether absolutely sure that want to go through with this and it's got to be documented.

So there are guardrails that are in this.

You know, this is kind of what Democrats are stressing and that also you have groups like the ACLU that are in favor of They feel it's a yeah.

That was just gonna say there's a number of groups that are are not in favor of Eilat, you know much about or what do we know about, you know, some of the opposition to this legislation?

the Catholic Conference of Illinois and church's is just get to that.

Yeah, >> So obviously, you know, for religious this was something >> you know, you know, the Republicans voted no against because of And I know the Catholic Conference of Illinois, of course, was urging as many people as they could to vote against that.

Basically, you know, opponents are basically saying that you're you're basically taking what doctors do, which is a role as a viewer to as a role is assisting in a suicide with.

So that's it.

So so on the House floor, there were it was a lot of high emotions.

You people who sharing personal experiences of loved ones on both sides of the issue saying that, you know, Yeah, says method that would end their suffering in this is why it should be done.

But then you people and said the IRA were against this saying that this is not the right way to go.

It's a more.

just last night, even we had we had a debate on here on Chicago tonight about it as well with the members of the disability advocacy organization as well as those who are in favor of it.

>> But I want to move on to something else that's gotten some national attention this week.

And that is amid a flurry of pardons.

The also pardons.

You know, the Todd and Julie Chrisley, former reality TV stars, but also the gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover.

He commuted that federal light sentence.

Violet, give us just, you know, some of the nuts and bolts when we know about this case.

>> So I mean, just to start, this is just kind of another in a pattern of several pardons that we've seen out of the Trump administration on several recently tied to that dinner at Mar-A-Lago.

That was a million dollars, a plate.

So we've seen kind of this uptick this week community sentences, you know, different things like that.

you know, I mean, it's pretty clearly, you know, essentially quid pro quo at this point.

You know, we're drawing the lines so I'm not sure that this case is unique in any sense, aside from the history that Larry Hoover has with Chicago Rufus, what do we know about how this case got to the president's desk?

Kanye I hope we know what we know is that, you know, he went in now known as ye that notarized meeting during the first term actually talked about Larry, who were one of Larry who attorneys was in the room.

>> And also the lady who was now moving forward pardons on behalf just on the street pardons, our departments are yes, yes, I think is Martin by Trump during her his first term, right?

They went and met with her and brought forth Larry Hoover some more.

And so this comes that this is the thing.

And I don't know that there's anything >> that comes out of this administration that doesn't have some strategy around it.

So, you know, he may pardon him federally, but now it's left to the state which means left to the governor.

And probably won't surprise anyone that they're on a lot of things the Governor Pritzker and Donald Trump C there's a And so now this comes here and certainly there have been rumors and act discussions about Governor Pritzker running for president.

And you would expect this.

Current incumbent with trying to do things that would make that difficult.

And so this does work too 2 upset some things because within the community, there are people who are in favor of him being released.

And there are people who have been harmed by, you know, the years and again in the 30,000 members us over 25 years.

And I'm saying, you know, given the difficulty that's been put into the community and into communities around the country because they were in 35 states.

This is not someone who should be released.

>> So he's now in his 70's been in solitary confinement, mostly at the Supermax prison in Colorado.

It's a very long casings.

Initially Illinois in 1973 point Saluda mean, when you hear Larry Hoover, a new hero rookie your person Gen X, like me.

>> The schools, but your earliest memories of watching the news.

You would hear these terms.

These were things in the community they would hear about going back decades.

So he's in a supermax facility now in the Colorado Mountains.

And for he was apparently he's been with you since federal.

He's going to thrown out of a custody.

We're not sure where he Well, so so we were sure that he's leaving because he's been because of Trump.

So Trump is a guy who's was making fun of Chicago and really making light of the crime in Chicago, which, by the way, is down now.

But from his first term, just loves talking about how bad he sees it in Chicago.

And there are problems.

But having said that, you're worried about the supposedly and then you do this to us now, when he was in that federal present, they say that he was very limited in his ability to run things from inside.

But when he was in state prison in the past, he was running.

Things are what got everything that was not just the thing that happens in the movies right.

And so now at this is he going to end?

And at this age, is he is this going to be a threat to the public?

You know, I don't know.

But has he done things that lead people to sentence him to life in prison judges and re circumvent legal process.

The president has that power.

But what is the purpose other than political in that sense just convince it that he's rehabilitated?

I guess we'll see because he's been sequestered up in those mountains for a long time.

So you mentioned violence that is down continuing to trend downward Memorial Day weekend saw 4 people killed.

21 wounded, which for us still.

>> For too many but better than previous memorial days violent.

How significant is is this drop in violence?

Is that appear to be?

I mean it it's a really significant drop.

Like you said.

I mean, there are still 4 folks killed and 21 wounded over the weekend about 05:00PM Friday to 05:00AM Tuesday.

I always wanted to find that they know it >> Get a little out date by you know, back in 2016.

I mean, we were looking at 71 shot over the same weekend.

And so you can see the significant drop off.

Obviously, the weather plays a factor.

There's no denying that.

But Mayor Brandon Johnson has credited CPS ability to hire more detectives.

Community members are talking about job training, mental health support.

All these sort violence interruption programs, all of these kind of multi-pronged attack on violence, essentially go ahead say April was the Lois was was low as well as entire month.

>> This is certainly worth noting.

And if it was bad, we would know that.

So the fact that >> it's coming down, the fact that we did have fewer murders for fewer people shot.

Then we have had in a number of years is certainly a point worth noting it was a bit weather wasn't as warm as we typically have over the weekend.

But it wasn't cold, wasn't snowy, wasn't rainy.

It was sunny.

It was just cooler.

And we A semblance of control in the street.

And I think that's certainly worth noting for the mayor for the police chief police and for all of those who out in the streets doing work to try to interrupt the violence ensure that folks are hoping that it can continue as the weather.

We >> So also violate your sometimes the amount bone and Kristen Shores have been looking at the impact of how cuts to Medicaid proposed by the U.S. House.

Republicans might impact folks here.

How big of a financial hit this is going to be to Illinoisans?

>> Yes, so I think it's important first to establish this passed in the House.

It hasn't passed in the Senate and has made to the president's desk.

So this is not certain yet, but we are looking at 700 billion dollars in Medicaid cuts.

And when folks think about, you know, who is on Medicaid, we're talking about patients with HIV were talking about senior care, specifically 70% of days in senior homes in Illinois last year were covered by Medicaid.

Medicare only covers 100 days so we could see the burden start shifting more onto seniors for their own care, especially the most vulnerable seniors.

As we mentioned before, we're looking at 43,000 trans people in Illinois alone, 267,000 nationwide, who would lose access to gender affirming care on and surgeries, both adults and minors.

It was originally just minors and then they struck it out essentially creating a Hyde amendment sort of situation for gender, affirming care.

And then as Jeremy mentioned earlier, we had some cuts at the state level in response to some of these federal cuts for, you know, undocumented immigrants who were getting health care through the state and with the budget upcoming, we could see those cuts get even deeper and cut into health care for senior immigrants who, you know, Jeremy noted are still covered at this moment.

Is there anything that state or local authorities can do to sort blunt that impact?

>> I mean, it's it's tough when you're just looking at a loss of funds that large.

I mean, you you there's only so much the state can do to bridge gaps like this when on the federal government has covered it for so long.

I mean, we even see the shortfalls from the COVID money.

And this is money that has been there for a much longer time.

So even the state's Medicaid expansion could be at risk.

All right.

We've got to talk go ahead.

Jeremy.

>> No break slated to just and that just end with violence.

Said, you know, House Speaker Chris Welch said a few weeks ago.

Don't be surprised.

Basically if they pass a budget by May 31st tomorrow and then have to come back, you know, during the summer time before the fall veto session, which they normally do a comeback in the summertime to try to address whatever lack of federal is going to get because of what the Trump administration may do.

So stay tuned.

We might see just because if they pass a budget this week it's very possible it could come back this summer, you know, to try to, you know, past more of a balance budget because of the uncertainty of federal funding for Medicaid and other areas.

>> But just want to add, you know, there's always a conversation that all politics is local, but this is a national thing that affects us in our household and where the other side of that is is really going towards those who have the most and benefit from this with these tax cuts.

This is a place where it just feels that from every single corner of the country, people should be outraged and people should be resisting and people should be calling in protesting because the people who point out who is going to harm or those that can afford it.

The least.

>> Ok, so we have talk about bears it's been an ongoing saga and the decision of where to build that stadium.

The latest news appears to be the Bears are focusing refocusing their attention on Arlington Heights.

Governor Pritzker, though he has repeatedly expressed little enthusiasm for putting any taxpayer dollars behind a new stadium.

Jeremy, what is the likelihood?

That's that's that?

Well, they're trying >> Yeah, I just time to start to ease pretty much stuck to his guns that he does not.

You know, he doesn't support federal, you know, statewide funding for a new bear stadium unless there's something in it for the state.

I mean, what you could possibly see is the Bears, you know, trying to take advantage of what's called mega projects legislation, which would basically give the bears the ability to work with local governments like the, you know, like Arlington Heights in the surrounding municipalities to try to negotiate some kind of property tax sliding scale rate, you know, to help aid in their move to the northwest Suburban mean you could see some state funding by way of infrastructure, you know, fixing the roads around, you know, the site of the former owns and racetrack.

If the Bears, in fact, move there.

But this mega project legislation is the latest development is to what the Bears appear you know, kind of guy having their eye on.

You know, you know, took to moved on to heights with, of course, the big question is you know, how are they going to pay for this?

You know, stadium, a viewer calls them little time.

question so, Jeremy, sorry, because I want to get to one more question because we don't we don't have a ton of time, Dan.

So meanwhile, Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams.

>> I sought to stem this controversy about how he initially did not.

2 Chicago first.

>> Well, from the sublime of what's going to happen to the school districts like the one that violent is a graduate of the northwest suburbs and their funding.

Thanks to the Bears wanting to now be going to suburbs to the kind of ridiculous.

I you know, better Vikings and Packers, I guess the boys and it in.

We're not huge fans either one of them.

He was.

But it's a business unit Yeah.

Young man.

alpha.

a commodity.

In the end of what sense is the Bears don't develop quarterbacks.

I think that history may show that that may be true.

So it's You've got Jones's you major of the ended on stadium like the boy, here we Okay.

That is other week in review.

Panel, thank you so much.

Team.

We're out of time.

>> Thank you to violent killer.

Rufus Williams, Dan, The Plus and Jeremy Goerner in Springfield.

>> And we're back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part why the Alexander and John Nichols family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation, additional support is provided by.

>> And that is our show for this Friday night.

Don't forget, you can get Chicago tonight and we can review streamed on Facebook, YouTube and our Web site W T Tw Dot com Slash news now for the weekend review.

Brandis Friedman, thanks for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stay informed.

Have a great weekend.

Everybody.

>> It was raining, you know, fell into for potholes the morning.

>> Well, how they're going to onto ice where they can get the money.

It's from the people that have prior to metro station needs an upgrade.

If they're going try and battle station, you mean the one that RTA where?

We back to the RTA becomes this thing, though.

I we've been doing some work in Oakland opens, lost all questions.

put Ball team, baseball team.

>> And their basketball team and you hate to be in the city >> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death.

That serves the needs of clients in the