Gov. Rauner's budget: there's no shared sacrifice here

NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 18, 2015

SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) issued the following statement in response to Gov. Rauner's budget proposal:

The plan the governor presented today is an assault, unprecedented in recent memory, on the working poor, the middle class and the most vulnerable members of our society. There is no shared sacrifice here; I heard no proposals for closing corporate loopholes or ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share.

Despite his promise to make Illinois more competitive and compassionate, the governor advocates for cuts that would decimate the ability of youth and others in our most underprivileged communities to compete. Meanwhile, compassion is conspicuously absent from this budget, which would eliminate breast and cervical cancer coverage for women making as little as $15,600, end respite care for families of children with developmental disabilities and further reduce already inadequate services for wards of the state.

Our young people — including those emerging from the most difficult of circumstances — possess within them the potential to transform our state. Achieving a balanced budget by undermining their opportunities — from the ability to attend school without fear of violence or bullying, to the chance to afford a college education — is both immoral and irresponsible. The savings the governor promises are a false economy: numbers that barely add up on paper and fall far short of our responsibilities to invest in the people of Illinois.

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