SPRINGFIELD — As we’ve reached the half-way mark in our 11the month without a state budget, political columnist and blogger Rich Miller today quotes Illinois Democratic lawmaker Rep. Jack Franks as saying, “Both sides suffer under the delusion that it’s OK that real people get hurt as long as the other side gets blamed for it.”

Miller agrees, saying “that’s exactly, totally right, and it’s how everybody involved in this mess sleeps at night, from the governor, to the leaders, to the members, to their respective cheerleaders.”

He says “they convince themselves that it’s all Rauner’s fault for being so anti-union and anti-bureaucracy, or it’s completely Madigan’s fault for being… Madigan.”

But Miller reminds us that real people are getting hurt by the budget impasse, and that it’s time for everyone to accept their own responsibility and find a way to come together and pass a budget.

He chides those involved for continuing to act as if they’re the real victims, or that they’re just helpless bystanders, because they’re neither.

The real victims, says Miller, are the homeless children and victims of domestic abuse who can’t find shelter, the rape victims who can’t find help, the college kids from poverty-stricken families who lost their dream of bettering themselves.

The supporters of the fiasco aren’t forgotten, as Miller also points out what he calls the minions out there on both sides saying they need to stop cheerleading this war, as they are also culpable.