Congress’ “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last summer could prove to be far more damaging to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Illinois than most people know. A SNAP “death penalty” is built into the budget reconciliation law. Before we go further, there’s a caveat: The US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service has […]
State of Illinois
Posted inOpinion
Last rights
Balancing a budget on the backs of poor people who are on their backs seems cold even for a member of the New Republican Party. In early April, Mr. Bruce Rauner suspended reimbursements paid by the state to funeral homes that bury dead public-aid recipients. The current reimbursements (up to $1,103 in funeral expenses and […]
Posted inOpinion
Of the people and for the people – but never like them
“What thrilled the people who stood before Abraham Lincoln,” wrote novelist Francis Grierson in The Valley of Shadows, “was the sight of a being who, in all his actions and habits, resembled themselves, gentle as he was strong, fearless as he was honest, who towered above them all in that psychic radiance that penetrates in […]
Posted inOpinion
Masters of the new machine
Gov. Bruce Rauner PHOTO BY Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune/TNS “We’re going to pay what we need to bring in talented people,” said Illinois’ new governor to reporters on Jan. 23. He was defending the many six-figure salaries he’s offered to the people he wants to handle the pumps and keep afloat a State of Illinois that is […]
Posted inArts & Culture
retiree’s lament poem #1
the State has stole our pensionsthe State has stole our pensionsthe State has stole our pensionssing loo-di-doo-di-doo that big ole bag of moneywe gave our savings tothe State just took and stole itsing loo-di-doo-di-doo there must have been some Interest’twas a humongous sumthe State could have that gladlyif they’d just left us some!sing loo-di-doo-di-doo-di-doosing loo-di-doo-di-doo
Posted inOpinion
Temples in ruins
I left one question unanswered when I wrote recently that the Horace Mann Educators Corp. building in downtown Springfield was one of four in the capital city designed by a world-famous architecture firm. (“Architectural dreams,” Aug. 4, 2011.) Why did a growing but still small insurance company in a not-growing and small Midwestern city hire […]
