After debating well past midnight Monday morning, Illinois lawmakers scurried
out of Springfield leaving the state’s gaping $11.6 billion budget hole largely unfilled.
In addition, Gov. Pat Quinn insists, if the state doesn’t find a way to increase revenue and shore up the deficit, education, healthcare
and social services will see major cuts. Quinn had proposed a 50 percent
increase in the personal income tax rate, from 3 percent to 4.5 percent, which
passed in the Senate but was defeated in the Illinois House.
According to Quinn’s projections, 190,000 college students would lose their state scholarships,
175,000 patients would no longer have access to community mental health
services, 20,000 senior citizens would have to do without home health services
and 9,000 foster parents wouldn’t get their state stipend checks.
It’s enough to make anyone lose their appetite. To protest what they characterize
as the budget process that’s often unfair to the neediest of citizens, a group called Communities United
for Revenue Equity organized a four-day hunger strike inside the Capitol last
week.
Their demands, listed on the back of T-shirts group members wore during their
demonstration, include increasing the state’s income tax, an expansion of the state Earned Income Tax Credit and maintaining
the “safety net for seniors, children and working families.”
Most of the hunger strikers traveled from Chicago. Springfield social justice
advocates Peg Knoepfle and Diane Lopez Hughes also participated.
“One of the frustrations that people share is that it seems like a political
game,” says Hughes, who fasted from Saturday to Sunday and is concerned about cuts to
resources for homeless services, particularly youth.
The hunger strike ended on Sunday, Hughes says, when it became evident that a
temporary income tax increase bill would fail in the House, which it did 42-74.
She was particularly encouraged by the racial and generational diversity and
camaraderie that existed among the of the group members, one of whom was 87
years old. Hughes also expects more acts of protest to be organized when budget
negotiations are restarted.
“When people do this kind of action, they get so much more out of it than losing
a few pounds,” she says.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2009.
