On July 15, the Illinois state government passed a $26 billion budget that includes $2.1 billion in cuts to social services and an additional cut of $1.1 billion to be implemented later on this year. The state has imposed these drastic cuts in an attempt to begin closing its $11.6 billion deficit.
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The Illinois State Board of Education has itself cut $180 million from its budget as a result of statewide service cuts. According to the July 22 Chicago Tribune, “Cuts in targeted programs will lock 30,000 children out of preschools, put thousands of high school dropouts onto the streets and rob blind children of the Braille books they need for class.” The state’s early-childhood program will lose one-third of its funding. Schools will be forced to end art and agricultural programs and foreign language and other classes and will no longer provide training for teachers.
The cuts in social services imposed by the Illinois budget are a far cry from the $7.5 billion in cuts proposed last month. The only reason that the Illinois state government was not able to get away with deeper blows, such as laying off 10,000 state workers, major cuts in childcare funds, and services for the homeless and disabled, was because the people of Illinois mobilized against the proposed cuts.
A series of demonstrations like the one that took place June 24 at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago were attended by tens of thousands of people. Diverse crowds of workers, students, retirees, parents and the mentally and physically challenged took to the streets of Illinois to demand that these essential services be safeguarded against this plundering. Major protests were held the previous day at the state capitol in Springfield.
The retreat of the Illinois politicians proves that they—and state governments in general—are lying when they say there’s no money in the current budgets for social programs. All the talk about having no choice other than making deep budget cuts, while big banks get trillions in bail-out loans and assistance, is exposed for what it is: a thinly veiled excuse to make workers, and not the banks, pay for the economic crisis and rob poor and working people of the social safety net needed by millions to merely survive under the capitalist system, even in “better” economic times.
But despite the workers’ ability to stop many of the most severe budget cuts, the banks and investors are still big beneficiaries of Gov. Quinn’s budget. The state will borrow $3.5 billion by issuing bonds that can be bought up by investors. These investors and the banks that issue the bonds will be handed at least $500 million of taxpayer money in the form of interest payments. This gift to the banks is yet another illustration of the Illinois state government’s commitment to the interests of the capitalist class, all the while strangling the workers until they turn blue.
The Illinois state budget should not have included a single cut in social services. Why should workers and oppressed communities give up one cent for an economic crisis that they did not cause? Why does the state not get the money they need from the bloated bankers and big money investors, instead of handing over to them a half a billion in tax dollars on a golden platter? As proved by protests that rolled back the cuts, if the working people of Illinois organize in their own interests and take their fight to the streets, we can win what we deserve, and more.
