New budget crisis begins after Washington fiscal talks fail

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama formally ordered broad cuts in government spending on Friday night after he and congressional Republicans failed to reach a deal to avert automatic reductions that could dampen economic growth and curb military readiness.

As the United States staggered into another fiscal crisis, the White House predicted that the spending cuts triggered by the inability of Obama and lawmakers to forge a broader deficit-reduction agreement would be "deeply destructive" to the nation's economic and national security.

"Not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away. The pain though will be real. Beginning this week, many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in significant ways," Obama told journalists after his meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders.

Late on Friday, Obama signed an order that put in effect the across-the-board government spending cuts known as "sequestration." Government agencies will now begin to hack a total of $85 billion from their budgets between Saturday and October 1.

Half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the reductions put at risk "all of our missions.

Congress and Obama could still halt the cuts in the weeks to come, but neither side has expressed any confidence they will do so. Both Democrats and Republicans set the automatic cuts in motion during feverish deficit-reduction efforts in August 2011.

MARKETS SHRUG OFF CRISIS

Friday's events marked the first budget showdown in Washington of many in the past decade that was not somehow resolved at the last minute - often under pressure from rattled financial markets. Markets in New York shrugged off the stalemate in Washington on Friday as they have for months.

Democrats predicted the cuts could soon cause air-traffic delays, meat shortages as food safety inspections slow down, losses to thousands of federal contractors and damage to local economies across the country, particularly in the hardest-hit regions around military installations.

At the heart of Washington's persistent fiscal crises is disagreement over how to slash the budget deficit and the $16 trillion national debt, bloated over the years by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and government stimulus for the ailing economy.

Obama wants to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts and tax hikes. Republicans do not want to concede again on taxes after doing so in negotiations over the "fiscal cliff" at the New Year.

Public outrage, if it materializes, would be the most likely prod for a resolution as the impact of the spending cuts starts to be felt in the coming weeks and months.

As a percentage of total government spending every year, $3.7 trillion, the actual spending reductions are small. But because safety-net programs such as Social Security and Medicare will be untouched, the brunt falls mostly on federal government employees rather than direct recipients of aid.

The U.S. government is the nation's largest employer, with a workforce of roughly 2.7 million civilians spread across the country. If the cuts stay in place, more than 800,000 of those workers could see reduced work days and smaller paychecks between now and September.

Furlough notices warning employees and their unions started to go out earlier this week and the pace picked up on Friday after it became clear that talks at the White House between Obama and congressional leaders would be fruitless.

While the International Monetary Fund warned that the belt-tightening could slow U.S. economic growth by at least 0.5 of a percentage point this year, that is not a huge drag on an economy that is picking up steam.

'THE SPENDING PROBLEM'

Many Republicans accuse the Obama administration of overstating the effects of the cuts in order to pressure them into agreeing to a solution to the White House's liking.

A deal proved elusive as Obama met at the White House with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the top two Democrats in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

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Well: A Rainbow of Root Vegetables

This week’s Recipes for Health is as much a treat for the eyes as the palate. Colorful root vegetables from bright orange carrots and red scallions to purple and yellow potatoes and pale green leeks will add color and flavor to your table.

Since root vegetables and tubers keep well and can be cooked up into something delicious even after they have begun to go limp in the refrigerator, this week’s Recipes for Health should be useful. Root vegetables, tubers (potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are called yams by most vendors – I mean the ones with dark orange flesh), winter squash and cabbages are the only local vegetables available during the winter months in colder regions, so these recipes will be timely for many readers.

Roasting is a good place to begin with most root vegetables. They sweeten as they caramelize in a hot oven. I roasted baby carrots and thick red scallions (they may have been baby onions; I didn’t get the information from the farmer, I just bought them because they were lush and pretty) together and seasoned them with fresh thyme leaves, then sprinkled them with chopped toasted hazelnuts. I also roasted a medley of potatoes, including sweet potatoes, after tossing them with olive oil and sage, and got a wonderful range of colors, textures and tastes ranging from sweet to savory.

Sweet winter vegetables also pair well with spicy seasonings. I like to combine sweet potatoes and chipotle peppers, and this time in a hearty lentil stew that we enjoyed all week.

Here are five colorful and delicious dishes made with root vegetables.

Spicy Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew With Chipotles: The combination of sweet potatoes and spicy chipotles with savory lentils is a winner.

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Roasted Carrots and Scallions With Thyme and Hazelnuts: Toasted hazelnuts add a crunchy texture and nutty finish to this dish.

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Carrot Wraps: A vegetarian sandwich that satisfies like a full meal.

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Rainbow Potato Roast: A multicolored mix that can be vegan, or not.

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Leek Quiche: A lighter version of a Flemish classic.

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Incomes see largest drop in 20 years

U.S. consumer spending rose in January as Americans spent more on services, with savings providing a cushion after income recorded its biggest drop in 20 years.

Income tumbled 3.6 percent, the largest drop since January 1993. Part of the decline was payback for a 2.6 percent surge in December as businesses, anxious about higher taxes, rushed to pay dividends and bonuses before the new year.

A portion of the drop in January also reflected the tax hikes. The income at the disposal of households after inflation and taxes plunged a 4.0 percent in January after advancing 2.7 percent in December.

The Commerce Department said on Friday consumer spending increased 0.2 percent in January after a revised 0.1 percent rise the prior month. Spending had previously been estimated to have increased 0.2 percent in December.

January's increase was in line with economists' expectations. Spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity and when adjusted for inflation, it gained 0.1 percent after a similar increase in December.

Though spending rose in January, it was supported by a rise in services, probably related to utilities consumption. Spending on goods fell, suggesting some hit from the expiration at the end of 2012 of a 2 percent payroll tax cut. Tax rates for wealthy Americans also increased.

The impact is expected to be larger in February's spending data and possibly extend through the first half of the year as households adjust to smaller paychecks, which are also being strained by rising gasoline prices.

Economists expect consumer spending in the first three months of this year to slow down sharply from the fourth quarter's 2.1 percent annual pace.

With income dropping sharply and spending rising, the saving rate - the percentage of disposable income households are socking away - fell to 2.4 percent, the lowest level since November 2007. The rate had jumped to 6.4 percent in December.

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Tax on pack of cigarettes sold in Chicago up $1 to $6.67

On the eve of a $1-per-pack Cook County cigarette tax increase, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle stood in the glow of X-rays showing damaged lungs, surrounded by some of Stroger Hospital's top pulmonary specialists as she discussed how smoking shortens people's lives.

The setting and talking points made clear the message Preckwinkle wanted to convey Thursday: This is a public health problem, one she plans to fight by giving smokers an incentive to quit and teens a reason not to start.

But the county's tax increase is more than just a campaign to protect people from emphysema and lung cancer. Preckwinkle is counting on $25.6 million this year from the move to help balance the budget. The history of cigarette tax increases suggests the county will be lucky to get that much in 2013 and should expect diminishing returns in the years ahead.

Smokes are a financial well that public officials have gone to repeatedly to shore up shaky finances at the local and state level. When the county tax increase takes effect Friday, a pack of cigarettes purchased in Chicago will come with $6.67 tacked on by the city, county and state. That's just behind New York City's nation-leading $6.86 in taxes per pack. It will also push the cost of a pack of cigarettes in Chicago to as much as $11.

Recent cigarette tax increases have had only a short-term benefit to the government bottom line. Some people quit, while others buy cigarettes online or outside the county or state.

When the county last raised the cigarette tax — by $1 per pack in 2006 — collections initially shot up by $46.5 million, hitting $203.7 million, county records show. But by 2009, the county collected $20.4 million less than it had in 2005.

Mayor Richard M. Daley bumped up the city of Chicago's share of the cigarette tax by 32 cents in 2005 and another 20 cents in 2006, to 68 cents per pack. He saw collections rise from $15.6 million in 2004 to $32.9 million in 2006, according to a city report. But city cigarette tax revenue fell to $28.4 million in 2007, and continued dropping to $18.7 million by 2011, records show.

At the state level, Quinn pushed through a $1-a-pack hike in June.

Before that, state lawmakers and Gov. George Ryan agreed on a 40-cent increase in 2002. Cigarette tax proceeds went up by more than $178 million in 2003, to $643.1 million, and rose to $729.2 million in 2004. The revenue then fell steadily to $549 million by 2010 before edging back up to $580 million last year, according to state records.

The county is preparing for the windfall from the $1 increase to be strong this year, then decline. County officials project that after bringing in $25.6 million for the remainder of this budget year, the increase will net about $29 million for 2014, $21 million in 2015, $15 million in 2016 and just $9 million in 2017.

Preckwinkle says that's OK with her.

"My hope would be that over the long run this is no longer a way in which governments look to raise money, because fewer and fewer people are smoking," she said. "So I would hope that we have the effect of reducing our revenue because more people quit."

The county could end up saving money as cigarette tax revenue falls because uninsured people with ailments related to smoking are such a heavy financial burden to the public hospital system, Preckwinkle said.

In the meantime, Preckwinkle pledged to hire more staff this year to crack down on stores selling untaxed packs and large-scale tobacco smuggling from surrounding states. "We anticipate that there may be some noncompliance, as there always is when you institute an increase like this," she said.

Preckwinkle also acknowledged that the higher tax rate will push some smokers into surrounding counties or Indiana to pick up their packs, but she predicted such cross-border runs will not last.

"While people may initially, when the prices rise, go to other states — Indiana, Wisconsin or wherever — over time that trek gets very tiresome and time-consuming, and they return to their former habits of buying their cigarettes nearby," Preckwinkle said.

But David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said he thinks the cigarette taxes in Cook County are now so high compared with surrounding areas that smokers will continue to make the longer drive, and Illinois stores near jurisdictions with lower taxes will struggle even more.

"You might see people return to their old patterns if we were talking about a slight disparity, say 25 cents a pack," Vite said. "But now we're talking about a difference of nearly $3 a pack compared to Indiana, almost $30 a carton. You're going to see guys working in factories saying, 'It's my week to make a run,' heading to Indiana and coming back with $1,500 worth of cigarettes for all their co-workers."

jebyrne@tribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping to finance the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 1, 2013

An article on Tuesday about a coming measles-rubella vaccination campaign in Rwanda misstated the source of the vaccine and some financing for the campaign. The vaccine and financing are being provided by the GAVI Alliance, not by the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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Economic expansion weakest since 2011

The U.S. economy barely grew in the fourth quarter although a slightly better performance in exports and fewer imports led the government to scratch an earlier estimate that showed an economic contraction.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.1 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, missing the 0.5 percent gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The growth rate was the slowest since the first quarter of 2011 and far from what is needed to fuel a faster drop in the unemployment rate.

However, much of the weakness came from a slowdown in inventory accumulation and a sharp drop in military spending. These factors are expected to reverse in the first quarter.

Consumer spending was more robust by comparison, although it only expanded at a 2.1 percent annual rate.

Because household spending powers about 70 percent of national output, this still-lackluster pace of growth suggests underlying momentum in the economy was quite modest as it entered the first quarter, when significant fiscal tightening began.

Initially, the government had estimated the economy shrank at a 0.1 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2012. That had shocked economists.

Thursday's report showed the reasons for the decline were mostly as initially estimated. Inventories subtracted 1.55 percentage points from the GDP growth rate during the period, a little more of a drag than initially estimated. Defense spending plunged 22 percent, shaving 1.28 points off growth as in the previous estimate.

There were some relatively bright spots, however. Imports fell 4.5 percent during the period, which added to the overall growth rate because it was a larger drop than in the third quarter. Buying goods from foreigners bleeds money from the economy, subtracting from economic growth.

Also helping reverse the initial view of an economic contraction, exports did not fall as much during the period as the government had thought when it released its advance GDP estimate in January. Exports have been hampered by a recession in Europe, a cooling Chinese economy and storm-related port disruptions.

Excluding the volatile inventories component, GDP rose at a revised 1.7 percent rate, in line with expectations. These final sales of goods and services had been previously estimated to have increased at a 1.1 percent pace.

Business spending was revised to show more growth during the period than initially thought, adding about a percentage point to the growth rate.

Growth in home building was revised slightly higher to show a 17.5 percent annual rate. Residential construction is one of the brighter spots in the economy and is benefiting from the Federal Reserve's ultra easy monetary policy stance, which has driven mortgage rates to record lows. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
 

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Groupon shares plummet nearly 25% on weak results, forecast

Groupon Inc., the Chicago-based daily deals website, offered up an earnings disappointment Wednesday after the market closed, and its stock price tumbled about 25 percent in after-hours trading.

The company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $81.1 million, or 12 cents a share, missing consensus analyst estimates, which called for the company to earn 3 cents a share. Revenue for the quarter came in at $638 million, up 30 percent year-over-year and in line with estimates.

Lower margins associated with its Groupon Goods sales and higher marketing costs — taking a smaller cut from merchants to attract new business — were cited as factors contributing to the quarterly loss.

Andrew Mason, co-founder and chief executive of Groupon, pointed a finger overseas as the primary cause.

"It was continued volatility in our international business that drove the weaker-than-expected profitability in the quarter," Mason said during the earnings call Wednesday. "We still have much work to do to bring our international operations to the same level of those in North America."

The company lost $67.4 million for the year, or 10 cents a share, on revenue of $2.33 billion. Projections for first-quarter revenue between $560 million and $610 million fell below consensus estimates of $655 million. The disappointing earnings and tepid forecast sent Groupon's share price plunging from nearly $6 down to about $4.40 in after-hours trading.

Launched in 2008, Chicago-based Groupon created its own e-commerce niche with heavily discounted daily deals blasted out to subscribers via email. While targeting has become more sophisticated, growth has slowed and with it, investor enthusiasm.

The company has set out to reinvent itself, introducing search-driven deals stockpiled with ongoing offerings, and continuing to build out its own store, Groupon Goods, which sells everything from orthopedic pet beds to diamond tennis bracelets at a discount. Those initiatives have yet to make much of a dent on the bottom line.

Groupon shares hit an intraday low of $2.60 in November but rebounded after Tiger Global Management, a New York-based hedge fund, acquired a 10 percent stake in the company.

That same month, Groupon rolled out its local marketplace in Chicago and New York, a bank of thousands of ongoing deals that the company called an "evolutionary step" toward demand shopping. Customers who search online for everything from Mexican restaurants to Brazilian waxes will see relevant active deals offered by Groupon, hopefully pulling them to the site to fulfill their purchases.

While still a small part of Groupon's sales, it represents a big shift from its familiar push model, where daily deal emails fill inboxes with hit-or-miss offerings, to a pull dynamic where customers come to its sites in search of a variety of products and services.

Mason said Wednesday that the shift will ultimately pay dividends for Groupon and its investors.

"We just believe that the potential of a local marketplace business, where you can fulfill demand instead of shocking people into buy(ing) something they had no intention to buy when they woke up in the morning … it's just a much larger business opportunity," Mason said.

Analysts remain mixed about Groupon's prospects to evolve the business model beyond its core daily deals.

Edward Woo, senior research analyst at Ascendiant Capital Markets, has a "sell" rating and a $2.50 price target on the stock. He remains cautious because of slowing growth in the company's daily deals business, and he is not convinced that Groupon Goods, which accounted for $225 million in fourth-quarter revenue, is such a good idea.

"There's only a couple really big, successful e-commerce companies out there, Amazon being the biggest," Woo said Tuesday. "If you were to place your bets, do you really think that Groupon can take on Amazon? Most people would say no."

While not quite bullish, Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena sees encouraging signs from Groupon's new searchable local marketplace and improving mobile engagement, upgrading the stock two weeks ago from "conviction sell" to "underweight," with a $5 price target, before the earnings report Wednesday.

"There are a couple of things we're encouraged by as we look at the overall story," Sena said Tuesday. "The fact that traction on mobile seems to be really strong, and growth within (their) local marketplace. I think that's an important overall business model evolution as the company moves from a push-based model to a pull-based model."

Arvind Bhatia, senior research analyst at Sterne Agee, recently upgraded Groupon to a "buy" with a $9 price target, citing the local marketplace initiative as a driver for long-term growth.

"Groupon has become synonymous with discounts," Bhatia said Tuesday. "The initial years were all about sending that email and letting you know there's a hot deal and it's going to expire soon. I don't think it's a bad thing to combine the push email with the pull."

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping to finance the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the vaccine and some financing for the campaign. The vaccine and financing is being provided by the GAVI Alliance, not the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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Author tells businesses to be like Mike

CAPTIONS

MJ in 1982
Michael Jordan in his college days with teammates Matt Doherty (44) and Sam Perkins and coach Dean Smith. (AP photo by Robert Willett /October 14, 1982)

By Samantha Bomkamp




Tribune reporter

10:11 a.m. CST, February 27, 2013

An author of a new book has some sage advice for business leaders: Be more like Michael Jordan.

Bruce Piasecki, who penned "Doing More with Teams: The New Way to Winning," says Michael Jordan's long and storied career "is a shining example of how the best teams operate."

Jordan shouldn't be emulated just because of the Bulls star's individual success, the author says, but by the way he showed leadership and helped create a seemingly unstoppable team, meshing with different personalities such as the quiet Scottie Pippen and outrageous Dennis Rodman to create a basketball dynasty.

Those team dynamics are similar in the business world, the author says. And businesses are most successful when they are led by the right leaders and are composed of a mix of people with varying talents, he argues.

Jordan also is held up as an example in other tenets of good business teamwork the author describes.

-- Ego and individual goals have no place on teams.

"When we pin all our hopes on a single individual and ignore the context in which he or she operates, we will be disappointed," he says.

--  Failure is part of winning.

"Leaders must instill in teams a tolerance of losing," he said. "We must convey that failure is a part of life and thus a part of business."

Jordan, who helped the Chicago Bulls win six NBA championships, famously said "I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."

The book is set to be released next month but is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

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House Democrats approve gun bans in votes GOP calls 'stunt'

SPRINGFIELD — The Democratic-led majority in the Illinois House voted Tuesday in favor of banning guns in schools, casinos and on public transit during an unusual debate allowing lawmakers to vote piece by piece on where people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons.

Democrats said the hourslong action on the House floor was a way to test support for the various elements of a bill that lawmakers are expected to pass this spring to comply with a federal appeals court ruling against Illinois — the only state that hasn't legalized some form of concealed carry for citizens.

Republicans accused the Chicago-led majority of forcing GOP lawmakers to take controversial positions that could be used against them in their next campaign.

"This is a political stunt," said Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, a former prosecutor. "It demeans this process."

The perpetual fight over gun control in Springfield took on new meaning following a December federal appeals court order that calls for Illinois to legalize concealed carry by early June. At the same time, Democrats who run City Hall and the Statehouse are pushing for new gun penalties amid an unrelenting stream of Chicago shootings punctuated in January by the death of a South Side teen who had traveled to Washington with her school to participate in President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities.

House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, set aside a special order of business to allow debate and votes on more than a dozen concealed carry proposals. Madigan's action forced up-or-down votes on the long lineup of amendments to a Democratic bill rather than the typical approach of weeding them out in committee or behind closed doors, then tacking on a few changes in the full House.

The legislation that carries all the amendments was not called for a vote, leaving potential conflicts between the proposals that lawmakers may seek to reconcile before any House vote to send the bill to the Senate.

With Madigan, the state Democratic Party chairman, already picking up suburban seats in the last election, Republicans feared he was setting his sights on gaining even more ground rather than actually trying to address the concealed carry issue. Republicans questioned why Democrats were focusing on the gun issue now, in this fashion, rather than on Illinois' budget problems and $96.8 billion pension debt.

Republican Minority Leader Tom Cross asked state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, whether her gun amendment does anything to address the state's pension crisis. Feigenholtz said the proposal was an "attempt to save lives."

"This bill can't pass out of the House like it is, nor can it go to the Senate, so how does that save a life?" Cross said.

Democratic lawmakers voted in favor of prohibiting concealed weapons in places like casinos, libraries, hospitals, mental health centers, child care facilities, stadiums and amusement parks.

"When they get done with this, you won't be able to carry anywhere," said Rep. David Reis, R-Willow Hill, expressing a frustration among many gun rights advocates as they watched restrictions get piled on.

At the end of the long string of amendment votes, lawmakers late Tuesday also approved an amendment sponsored by Rep. Brandon Phelps, the Harrisburg Democrat who has long sought to legalize concealed weapons. Phelps' proposal was drawn as a full bill that includes bans for stadiums, bars, churches, gymnasiums, sporting events and some businesses.

The gun debate in Illinois has always been more regional than partisan, with Downstate and suburban lawmakers of both parties more interested in gun rights for hunters and sportsmen. Chicagoans and lawmakers from nearby suburbs have been more interested in gun control.

raguerrero2@tribune.com

rlong@tribune.com

Twitter @RayLong

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