//
you're reading...
Illinois Budget, Illinois Politics

Illinois Budget: Illinois Policy Institute’s Fantasy Machine Churns Out Illinois Budget Proposal

(Chicago, IL) — March 17, 2010. The Illinois Policy Institute today released a detailed alternative Illinois budget that cuts $4.6 billion from the state budget, raises no taxes or loans, and still leaves the budget unbalanced by nearly $8.4 billion, kicking the can down the road.

“It will take the state a few years to dig out from underneath its debt …,” according to the report.

The Institute’s 104 page proposal may be the first fairy tale that ever included pie charts.

The Institute’s press release says that  its “… department-by-department budget shows how we can balance the budget while funding core government services and respecting taxpayers.”

The budget, however, doesn’t get balanced this year. Or next.

But the proposal does whack the bejeezus out of education and health care and human services. It cuts $1.6 billion from local schools and slashes $2.7 billion for community services, such as meals-on-wheels for seniors. You get the idea.

The right-wing Illinois Policy Institute stuffs its budget proposal with heaps demographic statistics, charts and graphs to shock and seduce the casual reader with group’s budget mastery, but it only manages to reveal its obfuscation.

The Institute’s FY 2011 budget contains three key elements:

1.      Spending realignments. The Institute outlines savings that would limit current year appropriations to $21.299 billion in Fiscal Year 2011. Including the pension payment and transfers out, total spending would amount to $26.969 billion. This equals outlays of $2,089 per resident.

2.      Right-sizing government labor costs. Roughly 24% of the cost cutting in the Institute’s proposal pertains to government labor costs, which are out of range with current private-sector rates.

3.      Pension funding reform. State pension costs are ballooning and threaten to cut into core government services. Our Pension Funding & Fairness Act ensures that current pensions are funded while offering common-sense reforms.

The circular file cabinet is the next stop for the Institute’s budget. Betcha.

About David Ormsby

David, a public relations consultant and blogger at The Huffington Post, is an ex-Press Secretary of the Illinois Democratic Party.

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Submit your email address and be among the first to receive our posts by e-mail as soon as they are published. It's free.

David Ormsby, Editor

RSS Gov. Pat Quinn

  • McHenry County Blog | Pat Quinn Tells Truth about Pension ... Cal Skinner
  • Illinois General Assembly, Gov. Pat Quinn Must Reconcile ... Marge Berglind
  • Pat Quinn Criticizes Scott Walker On Jobs The Huffington Post News Editors
  • Will Governor Pat Quinn Sign Illinois Budget on Thursday? « Child ... Marge Berglind
  • Quinn: Lawmakers Must 'Show Some Fortitude' On Pension ... Todd Feurer
  • Governor Pat Quinn Puts His Foot Down On Gambling Expansion ... Mark
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Capitol Fax.com Rich Miller
  • Democurmudgeon: Gov. Pat Quinn exposes Scott Walker as a fake ... Democurmudgeon
  • Advocates Seek Illinois Child Welfare Vision from Governor Pat Quinn Marge Berglind
  • Chicago News Bench: No, Really, Pat Quinn Still Sucks More Than ... TM-1000

RSS IL General Assembly

  • General Assembly puts health exchange bill on back burner - Crain's Chicago Business May 10, 2012
  • IL educators react to proposed state budget cuts - WREX-TV May 11, 2012
  • Violence Against Women Act Survives Partisan Fight, Quinn Told Not To Close ... - Patch.com May 9, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - MarketWatch (press release) May 1, 2012
  • You Paid For It: IL General Assembly Scholarship Program - FOX2now.com May 7, 2012
  • Our Opinion: Anti-bully bill should get OK - The State Journal-Register May 10, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - PR Newswire (press release) May 1, 2012
  • Illinois State University considers 4.4 percent tuition increase - Herald & Review May 10, 2012
  • Asian-Americans to have state caucus - WBEZ May 8, 2012
  • Suburban mayors also urge state to pass pension reform - Chicago Sun-Times May 10, 2012

RSS The Capitol Fax Blog

  • Question of the day May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Political cover or political payback? May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Illinois Needs Private Sector Jobs Now! Why Labor Leaders Support Senate Bill 1849 May 10, 2012 Advertising Department
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Chamber backs Quinn pension reforms May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • House approves bill to effectively end free employee health insurance premiums May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 - VIDEO *** Smith hearing resumes today (LIVE Coverage and Video) May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 *** Not a big deal at all, but it’s probably time to delegate a bit more May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Morning Shorts May 10, 2012 Owen Irwin
  • *** LIVE SESSION COVERAGE *** May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - COWL review, supplement to today’s edition and a Statehouse roundup May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 135 other followers

Powered by WordPress.com