John O'Connor of the AP has just broken the news that the unpaid bills of the Great State of Illinois have reached the awe-inspiring sum of $16.5 billion. Illinois is chasing a moving target as it tries to dig out of the nation's worst budget crisis, and a review obtained by The Associated Press shows $7.5 billion worth of unpaid bills – as much as half the total – hadn't been sent to the official who writes the checks by the end of June. Although many of those IOUs have since been paid, a similar amount in unprocessed bills has replaced them in the last three months, Comptroller Susana Mendoza's office said Monday. That's in addition to $9 billion worth of checks that are at the office but being delayed because the state lacks the money to pay them. Various bureaucratic tricks are being performed to slow down payment, but they all amount to stiffing the vendors, borrowing their capital at no immediate cost. In some cases,...(Read Full Post)