Today, Shirley Perez and I look forward to meeting with Director Fenton.
Chicago Tonight invited Rep Lang and Rep Sandack to discuss the budget impasse. In
this interview you can see the issues that divide the General Assembly.
To me, it is very simple. Support and pass a responsible budget with new revenue and do
it now.
Illinois is about to begin its third month without a state budget, and the prospects of a
compromise between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic leaders anytime soon is grim.
Some state lawmakers even say that at this point, they doubt that an agreement on a
spending plan can be reached before the end of the year. In the meantime, the state
continues to make statutorily required payments, with spending outpacing revenue by $6
billion.
But many other bills are piling up, and municipalities around the state – including
Chicago – are facing grave cash-flow problems while awaiting a lifeline from the capitol.
“Early on when the court decided that we should pay the state employees, it took a lot of
pressure out of the system, took a lot of pressure off of legislators and the governor,” said
Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie). “We could do a budget in 24 hours if the governor was willing
to sit down and talk about a budget. I think most acknowledge that the governor has a list
of things he wants to accomplish that have nothing to do with the budget, and he’s holding
the budget up over that.”
“I don’t want to play the blame game too much here,” said Rep. Ron Sandack (R-Downers
Grove). “Prior to this governor’s election we had 12 years of one-party rule, and we had
horrible unemployment, we had no growth, we had $5 billion in unpaid state bills … we
had a whole host of bad math, bad facts.
Tony Paulauski Executive Director
The Arc of Illinois
20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209
Frankfort, IL 60423
815-464-1832 (OFFICE)
815-464-1832 (CELL)
Tony@thearcofil.org
