Governor Rauner, Speaker Madigan, President Cullerton, Leader Durkin, Leader Radogno, and Members of the General Assembly;
We are alarmed and disappointed that Illinois is entering its second fiscal year without a fully funded, comprehensive budget. Passing a responsible budget is the most basic of responsibilities of government. By that measure, you are failing the people of Illinois.
Everyone – on both sides of the aisle – knows what it will take to solve Illinois’s budget w oes: new revenue. And yet, we don’t see revenue proposals or real, comprehensive budget bills being debated. Relying on court orders and credit lines to keep pieces of our infrastructure afloat is not governing – it is hardheaded, weak, and irresponsible. We understand it is hard to take a tax vote. It is even harder to be a low-income college student whose financial aid is in question, one of the nearly one million people affected by human service losses, or a worker who has lost their job because Illinois hasn’t been paying its bills.
The failure to act for so long has had consequences that will outlive this impasse. By failing to pass a fully funded, comprehensive budget, you are choosing to shut down programs and services permanently. Even if you aren’t voting to end youth programs or mental health services, failing to pass a real budget is a passive decision to cut services – all without a d ebate and without accountability. Cutting by acquiescence is still cutting. Choosing to run part of the state on autopilot, and let other parts wither by default, is still a choice.
While stop-gap measures and partial appropriations infuse some much-needed cash into critical state programs, those measures are just a bandage on a self-inflicted wound. Without raising the revenue our state needs, the wound will continue to fester, leaving at best a permanent scar and at worst wholesale losses of programming, capacity, and human potential that will never be restored. As we observe this unhappy anniversary – an entire year without a REAL budget – we call upon you to summon your political courage. Raise the revenue needed for a responsible, fully funded budget and put an end to this madness.
