Monday during this segment Governor Bruce Rauner was criticized for proposing a 36% reduction in human services spending, and I agree it is a tragedy that we must cut our support for Illinois’s most vulnerable just to balance our books.
This kind of cut, though, is our only option.
Wait... Can’t we can fill the budget hole by raising taxes? Well, we tried that. Despite raising revenue over 40%, our budget shortfalls grew each of the four years the temporary tax increase was in effect.
Illinois government under Pat Quinn spent every additional dollar of tax revenue and more. We are still in a hole, and all Governor Rauner wants is for us to stop digging.
Can’t we cut someplace else? Yes, and we have. Highway spending is already cut to the bone, as are education, public safety, and other core services.
All that remains are state pensions that have been giving away too much for too long. The decades-long and ongoing relationship between public sector unions and Illinois Democrats has created a $100 billion shortfall costing Illinoisans $17 billion this year alone.
That relationship has also protected retirement benefits in the Illinois Constitution, so unless we amend Illinois’s Constitution, Governor Rauner’s only option is to cut human services.
Our choice is not between raising taxes or protecting human services; it’s between protecting unsustainable pensions or Illinois’s most vulnerable.
I’m Frank Dyke, and that’s my perspective.