The Shriver Brief : Poverty Law Commentary & Insights : Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law : Affordable Housing, Healthcare Reform

When newly-installed Governor Quinn gave his budget address March 18, 2009, he put forth the case for a combination of budget cuts and tax increases necessary for the indebted state of Illinois to get through this devastating recession. Although he pushed this message throughout the legislative session and the Senate approved a substantial tax hike, in the end the budget signed into law on July 15 relies instead on borrowing and harsh cuts to essential services in Illinois.

In a year of many notorious firsts within Illinois politics, this year’s budget is unprecedented in many ways. It relies tremendously on borrowing, jeopardizing the state’s credit-worthiness and resulting in a massive projected deficit of $10 billion for next year. It grants the Governor unheard of discretion by appropriating lump sum amounts to agencies under his control and leaving up to him the decision as to which programs to cut, rather than providing line-by-line programmatic spending authority as in past years, in an attempt to push the blame for the required cuts onto him. To the devastation of the state’s most vulnerable, it makes deep cuts in many programs on which thousands of residents rely.

The full impact of this year’s budget will not be realized until the Governor and his agencies make the tough decisions the legislature chose not to make, deciding which programs will be fully funded, which will be cut, and which will be eliminated. But the ultimate impact of this budget will continue to be felt for years, as the state will cope with addictions that could have been treated, violence and homelessness that could have been prevented, and increased expenses from seniors forced into nursing homes.

Before this budget was even signed into law, the uncertainty caused by the failure to adopt a new budget before the start of the state’s fiscal year and the massive cuts being proposed led to hundreds of social service providers being laid off and thousands of Illinois residents in need of assistance being turned away. Since the adopted budget funds social services at about 85% of the Governor’s requested budget, which already contained cuts, more layoffs will occur and additional services will be cut. But the fight is not yet over. With continued advocacy by the thousands who have written letters, called legislators, attended rallies, and struggled to make their voices heard, the legislature will return in January to renewed cries for the tax increase the state so desperately needs. Perhaps then, when the cuts are real and the legislators see the suffering their cowardice created, they will step up and meet the needs of the people and state they supposedly serve.

To read the Shriver Center's complete analysis of  the Illinois State budget, click here.  

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The Illinois General Assembly meets this week to attempt to resolve the budget.  Failure carries with it incalculable costs that prolong the recession and hit every legislative district. 

The impending cuts directly impact hundreds of thousands of children, seniors, people who are sick and hurt, the unemployed, and workers.  The costs to them are staggering, but there are other costs:

• The state will get sued repeatedly.  Some of the cuts would violate federal or state laws.  Some would violate existing court orders and consent decrees.  The Attorney General’s office must defend all these cases, but it has its own shrunken budget and would be swamped.
•  Proposed cuts violate the condition in the federal stimulus law that states not cut Medicaid.  This will cost us billions in federal stimulus funds.    
• The state would also lose massive sums of federal matching funds and block grant dollars across a range of programs.
• These lost federal funds come out of the Illinois economy – it is money not spent on goods and services in our state.
• The Department of Human Services estimates that the cuts to its budget would cause a loss of 170,000 jobs outside of state government.  These are entrepreneurs, independent caregivers, and employees of non-profit or for-profit businesses that provide or support the programs in various ways.
• Legislators have spent their careers building important programs that will be gutted or eliminated by this process.  Time, talent, and hard-won accomplishment would be wasted. 

The General Assembly’s budget would prolong the recession and hurt the state, not just those who need the programs.  We need to fund the government and not bring about all of the above incalculable costs.

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