"We are in trouble. And we won't get out of trouble unless Gov. Pat Quinn and Illinois legislators have to courage to put a stop to the unchecked spending that has got us to where we are today." – Democratic state Rep. Jack Franks of Woodstock.

Truer words were never spoken. Illinois is broke.

But don't depend on legislators like Franks to do anything about it. He talks one way and acts another.

The quotation from Franks was taken from an article that he wrote for The Chicago Tribune and was praised in a subsequent News-Gazette editorial. Our support for his words stands. He was obviously right.

But just as one must beware of Greeks bearing gifts, one also ought to take the words of Illinois politicians not with a grain, but a pillar, of salt.

It's hardly a revelation that politicians often are less than forthright in their public comments. But sometimes the hypocrisy is breathtaking, and that's what drew our attention to Franks.

One specific remedy to the state's financial problems that Franks proposed in his commentary was a forensic audit of all state spending. It's been done in other, less corrupt states and helped identify considerable savings. In a state like Illinois, where corruption is the name of the game, who knows what dividends a forensic audit could pay?

Franks borrowed his idea for a forensic audit from unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski, who relentlessly pushed the idea of assigning Auditor General William Holland to follow the money.

Lots of legislators, mostly Republicans, hopped on the forensic audit bandwagon. But when Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, citing phony concerns over its cost, announced his opposition, the plan, for all practical purposes, was dead. When Madigan says, "Jump," House Democrats ask, "How high?"

So when the Illinois House voted this week on the proposed forensic audit, it went down in flames on a partisan 68-48 vote.

Two Democrats – Reps. Keith Farnham of Elgin and Franks – had the audacity to co-sponsor HR 1057. But when push came to shove, neither supported the resolution. Farnham voted to kill the idea and Franks is listed as not voting. Not surprisingly, Democratic state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson of Urbana also voted against the audit.

Local state Reps. Shane Cultra, Chapin Rose and Bill Black – all Republicans – voted in favor of conducting the audit.

After the vote, Andrzejewski said that "Democrats are now on the record opposing a corrective audit of the entire budget while our state careens toward insolvency."

Republicans may be happy to have that issue, but the state would have been better served by a complete audit of state spending. Interestingly, legislators did approve a forensic audit of Medicaid spending by a unanimous vote in both the Senate and House. So why not a similar audit of what Andrzejewski describes at the "remaining $39 billion in 'political' spending"? That's a good question.

Here's another good question. Why do voters keep letting their elected representatives, like Franks, mislead them?