70% Just Won't Cut It

As you are likely aware, an estimated 5,000 Illinoisans converged on the Capitol building in Springfield on Tuesday, June 23 to protest crippling budget cuts to social services and to urge legislators to vote for a progressive income tax increase to cover the holes in the budget and to relieve the disproportionate tax burden Illinois has placed on residents with limited means.

5,000 people. Tremendous. You helped close the Capitol building with your numbers. Tremendous.

So, here is our current budget situation (Largely gathered from information in The Capitol Fax Blog ):

- It is possible that if certain pieces of legislation and policy are enacted then $3.3 billion dollars would be freed up which would provide for a budget at 70% of state funding, rather than the 50% of funding that is currently on the table. However, the amount could be less. The Governor’s Office thinks that $3.3 billion is an overestimate of revenue.

There are a couple of problems with this proposal:

1) 70% of funding is still far less than is needed in order for social support services to be able to meet the INCREASED NEED for their services- there will still be service cuts, staff cuts, and agency closures, all of which mean that the vulnerable people of Illinois will not get the help that they need, deserve, and have a right to.

2) This is patching a sinking ship with scotch tape -it does not address the state funding problem only the symptoms. All of the funding problems, tax problems, and resource allocation problems that lead to this situation will still be in place.

3) It still does not address the need for a progressive income tax increase- there is still a disproportionate tax burden on the people of Illinois who can afford it the least.

Not to mention that we don’t even know if the $3.3 billion will actually come in. Seems like a pretty big bet… and one that would be paid out by the vulnerable people of Illinois if we lose.

- Some in the legislature are pushing for an extension of the current budget year for another month or two.

This would essentially just put off hard decisions and consequences and make the consequences more painful when we do have to face them. If we all know that we have been operating in a system that is precarious at best and harmful in some circumstances, is the solution really to keep doing it for a couple of more months? How does that make any sense? Things will get worse as they have been getting worse and when the state (by which I mean the legislators, state agencies, service providers, and residents of all income brackets) has to knuckle down to fix the budget problem, it will be a bigger hole requiring bigger cuts and more pain.

While the crowd that overran the Capitol Building on Tuesday was awesome and powerful, we cannot let the pressure off. Keep pushing your legislators to support the progressive income tax increase. Keep pushing your legislators to address the budget problems now. Keep talking to your friends and family about how the budget affects us all.

Keep pushing. We cannot afford to stop.

There is some talk of further protests to be held early next week in both Springfield and Chicago. We will let you know as soon as we have more information.

And if you have pictures of any of the rallies, links for more information or events, etc. that you would like to share, please feel free to use this Facebook group to do so.