We intelligently cut costs (none of this "lets fuck poor people over" bullshit) while raising revenue. This is about the only bit of wisdom of personal bookkeeping that translates well to government finance, when you're in over your head, you eat out less and get a second job.
That temporary increase to 5% income tax would've saved us a whole heap of trouble had the State Assembly been fucking adults about it and earmarked those increased funds solely and only for the purposes of debt relief, rather than raiding them for pet district projects and other bullshit. This is the greatest failing of the IL Democratic machine. Greedy fucking children, the lot of them, fuck them all. Cutting some costs here and there is necessary too, but lets cut the pointless roadworks projects, most of the stuff highlighted in Rauner's turn-around agenda regarding what the state pays for things, and any other "luxury" spending should go. Cutting services to the poor or education is a fucking dumb thing to do. Amend the constitution to allow pension restructuring, and as compromise to that, allow progressive tax rates. IMO that's probably the best we could do, but I'm no politician or economist, and I'm sure loads of people on this sub would disagree with me.
As anything, the ideal solution is probably somewhere in the middle, but we've got two sides with their heels firmly dug into the mud telling the other side to fuck off, while the fate of our State hangs in the balance.
The next few decades will hurt, but I think we'll weather this storm just fine. I don't buy the doom-and-gloom story of how IL and Chicago are going to collapse under the weight of all this. Will some people leave? Sure. A'int nothing we can do about that. Sure was nice of them to live here while taxes were low (at the cost of future debt), then fuck off when the bill comes in the mail. But Chicago isn't going anywhere. A fire tried to take this city out and failed. Businesses are moving back here from the suburbs (office space is not exactly in a surplus right now), and people aren't bitching about gentrification because people are moving out of the city. We'll take a few hits, but we're not getting knocked out. Unless the USA collapses, Chicago will be here for the next two hundred years at least. We have a diverse economy and access to the largest reservoir of fresh water on the planet. We'll be just fine.