ogant politicians are gambling that, come November, Illinois voters who usually vote for familiar names won’t rebel against incumbent legislators. But given how shabbily majority Democrats once again have treated the citizens who pay their salaries, we wonder if many of the incumbents risk being replaced.

After legislators ended a five-month session with state finances in shambles and even school openings uncertain, here’s a logical calculation for many voters represented by the Democrats:

We like our state rep and senator. Good people, good intentions. They’re at every pancake breakfast and Main Street parade. But sending them back to Springfield just entrenches House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton. Those two have had 84 years in power and just look at this mess. Illinois needs to change. So do our votes.

More than 1,000 jobs are coming to the metro-east, as Amazon has confirmed it will operate two fulfillment centers in Edwardsville.

According to a statement from the online retailer, “Both fulfillment centers will span more than 700,000 square feet each where employees will pick, pack and ship items for customers. One of the buildings will specialize in handling larger items like big-screen televisions, sports equipment or kayaks, and the other building will handle smaller items such as books, toys and electronics.”

The warehouses are located at the Gateway and Lakeview commerce centers, which lie west of I-255, north of I-270 and straddle Illinois 111. The warehouses have already been built, but Amazon is completing interior construction inside the buildings before their operations begin.

Democrats and Republicans haven’t been able to agree on a state budget or education funding plan, but lawmakers still managed to send Gov. Bruce Rauner more than 400 pieces of legislation, from measures aimed at expanding voter access to extending a medical marijuana trial program to protecting a historic fish.

While much of the focus centered around the partisan political fight that’s left Illinois without a budget since last July, there were areas of compromise, namely in criminal justice.

Both sides are looking to re-examine a tough-on-crime legal system that drove up the state’s prison population, and the corresponding cost of prosecuting and housing offenders. That’s seen more liberal Democrats who traditionally have pushed for more diversion and rehabilitation programs now aligned with the conservatives who have long pushed to cut the cost of government.

During the long budget battle in Springfield, many inventive and harsh things have been said by those on each side. But in decrying the financial condition of the state government, Gov. Bruce Rauner took the rhetorical fight to a new level. “The Democrats have spent our state into the toilet for 30 years,” he asserted. “We are like a banana republic.”

No, not a Banana Republic store, part of the clothing chain. The governor was alluding to certain Latin American nations with a longstanding reputation for irresponsible governance. His novel claim, however, raises a couple of questions:

•Is Illinois really as bad as banana republics?

•Are banana republics really as bad as Illinois?

An economy that has struggled for growth for seven years showed fresh signs of trouble Friday with a sobering jobs report. Nonfarm payrolls climbed by a mere 38,000 in May—the fewest since September 2010. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that a record 94,708,000 Americans were not in the labor force last month, as the labor-force participation rate fell to 62.6%, from 63% two months earlier.

When thinking about what has stymied the U.S. economy, I sometimes recall a biology lesson about the role that cell death plays in explaining embryonic development and normal growth of adult tissue. In economics, as far back as Joseph Schumpeter, or evenKarl Marx, we have known that the flow of business deaths and births affects the dynamism and growth of a country’s economy. Business deaths unlock resources that can be allocated to more productive use and business formation can boost innovation and economic and social mobility.

For much of the nation’s history, this process of what Schumpeter called “creative destruction” has spread prosperity throughout the U.S. and the world. Over the past 30 years, however, with the exception of the mid-1980s and the 2002-05 period, this dynamism has been waning. There has been a steady decline in business formation while the rate of business deaths has been more or less constant. Business deaths outnumber births for the first time since measurement of these indicators began.

The possibility that Illinois could enter an unprecedented second straight fiscal year without a budget had the U.S. municipal bond market worried on Wednesday over when the state might begin to make progress in addressing its financial woes.

The Democratic-controlled legislature wrapped up its spring session late on Tuesday without a fiscal 2017 spending plan or even a school funding budget that both the House and Senate could agree on. Democratic leaders, who are battling Republican Governor Bruce Rauner over his pro-business and labor-weakening reform agenda, also refused to immediately take up the governor’s short-term budget plan.

Illinois has limped through 11 months of fiscal 2016 as the only U.S. state without a complete budget, operating under court-ordered spending, and continuing and stopgap appropriations. As of Wednesday, any budget legislation would need a more demanding three-fifths majority vote to pass.

Anger. Disappointment. Distrust.

Those are some of the words Democratic and Republican lawmakers used to describe the Illinois state budget stalemate that, if not solved in a few weeks, could threaten the opening of schools this fall.

Insiders believe a deal to save schools must be struck by mid-July  — and many think it will happen after Independence Day and before the Republican National Convention begins on July 18.

When legislators last year voted unanimously to eliminate Belleville Township, state Rep. Dwight Kay thought it was such a good idea that he introduced legislation to dissolve East St. Louis Township, too.

But despite strong bi-partisan support for getting rid of Belleville Township, Kay’s bill never made it out of committee.

“I was told by the chairman that he would not run my bill,” said Kay, R-Glen Carbon. “It got no support from the Democrats.”