Fw: The Union and Budget Cuts

[Guest guest]

FYI...

Anyone outraged, yet!

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

The Union and Budget Cuts

Tough - STRONG editorial from today's Chicago Tribune on budget cuts and the

union. Is anybody listening?

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Cronies and cuts

Gov. Quinn's budget demands few sacrifices from his union allies

My vision for Illinois is a state that looks to the future by making reforms and

sacrifices in the present. Everybody in, nobody left out when it comes to

building a better Illinois. " Gov. Pat Quinn's budget address, Feb. 16, 2011.

If you haven't yet heard the screams, you're wearing thick earmuffs. Social

services agencies hired by the state to care for disabled, sick and other needy

citizens are complaining, loudly, about rough treatment from Gov. Pat Quinn.

The providers, whom Illinois chronically stiffs by paying them late, think

Quinn's stirring call for " sacrifices " is at odds with deep cuts to human

services in his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. But

those cuts and word last Friday from Quinn's office that some severe funding

reductions actually will begin March 15 are only symptoms of the real problem

here: Quinn defines " Everybody in, nobody left out " in a way that excludes the

labor union allies whose money and muscle arguably got him elected Nov. 2.

It's as if the governor is determined to keep proving, and proving, a point we

made Oct. 10: Pat Quinn is relentlessly starving clout-poor social services so

he can protect the jobs and benefits of his union supporters. Shame on Quinn,

and on all of us in whose name he perpetrates this raw injustice.

At the time, Quinn had committed Illinoisans to spend another $75 million on a

jobs program he liked rather than pay that money to providers for services they

had already rendered. He also had assured state government's biggest union which

promptly endorsed him of no layoffs at least until mid-2012. Oh, and Quinn had

agreed that none of the state institutions where members of the American

Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees work, no matter how

obsolete, would close.

Remember, this is the governor who, early on, preached " cut, cut, cut " and even

as he awarded raises to his own staffers demanded " shared sacrifice. "

Yet, incredibly, the January deal that hiked your income tax rate by 67 percent

included no companion cuts to state spending, costly employee benefits included.

And the budget Quinn now proposes asks for nothing like higher contributions by

state workers to their health care and retirement changes he proposed, and then

ran away from, two years ago.

We weren't surprised to hear Quinn say Thursday that his March cuts will be less

drastic than his office had said. Expect more of Good Pat heroically intervening

to save needy citizens from the spending reductions that Bad Pat had announced.

Good Pat really likes to upstage Bad Pat.

But any relief-come-lately shouldn't keep the service providers from feeling

seriously chumped by a governor who has manipulated them to do his bidding: At

Quinn's urging, many providers supported his 2 percentage point income tax

increase the one that, before the election, Good Pat pledged to veto if it

exceeded 1 percentage point. More recently, again at Quinn's urging, providers

lobbied legislators to approve an $8.75 billion borrowing scheme that would even

further mortgage the future of state government and taxpayers alike. In return

for their loyalty to the governor, the providers got the stiff budget cuts.

Notice the pattern here? Taxpayers send more money to Quinn's administration.

Service providers don't get paid on time and now, it appears, will have to make

do with less. Yet one crucial group all but escapes any sacrifice at all.

We say " all but escapes " because AFSCME did agree to delays in some of the many

raises its members are receiving during their current contract with the state.

The union and the governor, whose office provided the numbers below, have been

congratulating themselves for temporarily delaying raises. Delayed raises?

That's a " sacrifice " for which hordes of private-sector Illinoisans would

stampede to volunteer.

These AFSCME raises compound to total pay hikes north of 17 percent during the

same years when many Illinois taxpayers that is, the lucky ones who still have

jobs are seeing their own wages and benefits frozen or starkly curtailed:

Jan. 1, 2009: 2.5 percent.

July 1, 2009: 2.5 percent.

Jan. 1, 2010: 2 percent.

July 1, 2010: 1 percent.

Jan. 1, 2011: 1 percent.

June 1, 2011: 2 percent.

July 1, 2011: 2 percent.

Jan. 1, 2012: 1.25 percent.

Feb. 1, 2012: 2 percent.

Raises this generous for jobs this secure in times this desperate should have

the governor demanding reductions in future pension benefits for current

employees, and an end to free health insurance for current retirees. Plus those

higher employee contributions he proposed, and abandoned, in 2009. Rising

pension costs alone will continue to steal money from social services for years

and years to come.

Quinn wants to use his billions in new tax revenues, plus billions in new

borrowing, to help increase general funds spending as he cuts social services.

That agenda serves state workers and their union officials quite well. By no

means, though, can Quinn say it serves the common good. The governor even wants

insolvent and overspent Illinois to add some 950 employees to the payroll.

That hiring would deliver more dues-paying members to Quinn's cronies at AFSCME.