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Cullerton: Rauner Budget "Unconscionable"

budget collage

The president of the Illinois Senate says the governor will have to try again to produce a balanced budget proposal.
Senate President John Cullerton says the governor's proposal is unworkable and unconscionable and unbalanced, since it relies on $2.2 billion in savings from cutting pensions, legislation that may or may not pass, and if it did, may or may not hold up in court. Cullerton wants the governor to try again.
 
"It still comes back to the governor. The governor campaigned on lowering taxes, and spending more money on education, so the problem is he doesn't have a balanced budget, and that's his responsibility, so we're gonna look to him to see how he wants to plug the holes."
 
Cullerton says the governor's proposal, which features $6 billion in cuts, would hurt the middle class by cutting public transportation and higher education, and hurt the hurting by cutting drug treatment programs and Medicaid preventive dental care, without which the state's long-term costs will be greater.
 

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