The current legal battle surrounding Gov. Rod Blagojevich's maneuverings to dramatically expand the state's health insurance program gives truth to the adage: Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

For while there is great gnashing of teeth among some legislators over the governor's perceived grasping of power, the reality is that those very same lawmakers knowingly and willfully abdicated their budget-making authority to him a long time ago.

How? By consciously refusing repeated efforts by me and others to close an obscure provision in Illinois law known as "Section 25" of the State Finance Act.

That loophole allows the state to accumulate health care bills at the end of each year and delay their payment until the next fiscal year, using appropriation authority and revenues from the new year.

In essence the General Assembly has given the governor a blank check for health care spending.

So when the governor said he was going to expand health care coverage to tens of thousands of Illinoisans' without the General Assembly's approval, the Section 25 provision pointedly protected by the General Assembly provided him with the power to do so.

It's not a new trick. Over the years and under other governors, billions of dollars in Section 25 payments have been deferred.

For years I have urged the elimination of this loophole, arguing that its existence allows state leaders to deny the true costs of state-provided health care and to sidestep requirements that the state maintain a balanced budget. But lawmakers and the governor rebuffed my efforts.

Thus, the Legislature is now getting the status quo it wished for: a governor who believes he has the ability to engage in unchecked spending, leaving future Illinois taxpayers saddled with the bill.

State Comptroller Dan Hynes

Springfield