Written by H. Scott McGillicuddy, Freelance Contributor.

Springfield–Amid tension from universities all over his state, including a walk-out as well as several marches and other protests, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner refuses to pass a budget.

During many unsuccessful budget meetings, including a visit from President Obama, Rauner insists that the democrats “just won’t play ball,” telling reporters he has warned his colleagues in the past. Rauner, who has been rumored as treating his colleagues as childish has been reported as warning, “Don’t make me turn this car around,” to no avail. After a particularly heated discussion Friday, Rauner reportedly demanded representatives to “Go home and think what you have done,” afterwards telling them, “Don’t even bother having supper.” On being asked about his seemingly harsh statements, Rauner said, “Look, [the democrats] have become so entitled, and they need discipline, someone to put their foot down–I believe I’m that man.”

Illinois representative Bobby Rush, a democrat who represents Illinois’s 1st congressional district, found Rauner’s behavior “offensive, condescending, and laughably deluded,” stating, “I have no idea how he plans to enforce that. Is he going to follow each one of us home to ensure our wives withhold dinner from us? Is he going to make sure we go to bed without supper and stand outside our bedroom windows to make sure we don’t sneak out after he goes to bed?” He went on: “If any of this is the case, the Governor is clearly off base with more than just the budget.”

Rauner, who has blamed the stagnancy of Illinois’s budgetary meetings on those on the other side of the aisle of him, has been long criticized and the reason for which several university protests have been organized.

Still, Rauner insists he is being the “responsible one,” characterizing his opposition as “like teenage girls using the family credit card for a spending spree on non-essentials, luxuries like education and looking after the elderly. I have to be a responsible parent.”

While Rauner’s leadership methods have long been criticized by the mass media and general populace, many republican Illinois natives having “regretted” voting for the Governor, the content of which each budgetary meetings have been only rumored, including one about Rauner whacking a particularly free-willed state representative across the nose with a newspaper yelling, “That’s a bad state representative! Bad!”

Though Rauner’s condescension has been viewed as “frighteningly oppressive,” Rauner himself remains strong-willed in his views that the democrats, and the general populace for that matter, are “naïve,” shockingly revealing in a press conference that “Sometimes I have to spank those little liberal ladies into submission!” To many raised eyebrows about his statement, he went on: “Some say corporal punishment is wrong,  but I find it especially effective when dealing with naughty state representatives.”

-HSM.

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H. Scott McGillicuddy is an award-winning essayist, author of creative nonfiction, and former cartoon character.