CHICAGO (February 18, 2015) -- Following is the response of United Working Families Executive Director Kristen Crowell to the budget proposal presented today by Gov. Bruce Rauner.
"Gov. Bruce Rauner's budget presented today represents a wholesale surrender of our state's future to corporate greed.
"Retirement savings demolished. Education irreparably harmed. Working families denied life-saving healthcare.
"This will be done in the name of 'efficiency.' But Rauner is asking so much of the people who can least afford it and so little of the people who can afford it most.
"This budget is a living monument to the failed 'trickle-down' policies of Reagan and Bush and deliberately excludes the 99 percent of working families who, unlike him, don't own multiple luxury homes or hide their fortunes in foreign countries.
"This budget doesn't trim the fat of state government, it cuts limbs and will harm working families and the middle class just as they begin to emerge from a recession caused by the reckless greed of people like Rauner.
"This budget lays bare Rauner's true priorities. He'd sooner slash vital service and put Illinoisans' lives at risk than demand that his millionaire and billionaire friends pay their fair share.
"United Working Families will fight back against this heinous budget. We call on the members of the General Assembly to denounce this budget and stand with us. We will support the elected officials who fight this budget with us. And we will remember those who didn't."
