Vote for state income tax hike

The state budget meltdown must be resolved with a substantial increase in revenues or the proposed budget cuts will be unconscionably cruel to hundreds of our vulnerable neighbors and relatives. Many people depend on state-funded supports like quality child care to keep their jobs, foster care subsidies to have a safe home, and home health care to remain independent. Programs supporting the arts, parks and recreation and public safety improve the lives of all of us.

Agencies that provide services to people who need help have been operating by combining state dollars with private fundraising and by underpaying and overworking their staff. These agencies have been notified their state dollars will be eliminated or reduced. Not only will those requiring services be hurt, but those who provide these services will find their jobs gone, leaving thousands unemployed and possibly in need of services themselves.

Those who claim that cuts could be made in other programs before vulnerable people are affected are short on details. Programs like education and Medicaid are matched by federal stimulus dollars. Chopping funds from these programs would result in a loss of matching funds, leaving an even greater budget deficit than we currently face. Also, those programs have been shamefully underfunded for many years. Pension obligations, deferred by our governors and state legislators for many years, have snowballed.

The League of Women Voters has been for decades predicting the train wreck now upon us. Inadequate revenue and increasing state obligations for health care, retiree benefits, etc., have been the result of actions taken by both Republican and Democratic administrations. We urge that our elected leaders stop pointing fingers and misleading the public about the need for an income tax increase. We don't need more debate; we need action to care for our most vulnerable citizens. We need to ensure that all citizens of Illinois receive those services critical to making Illinois a great state in which to live.

Call your state legislators and urge them to vote to raise the revenues to fund a full year's budget by increasing the income tax.

Janet S. Craft, co-president

League of Women Voters Geneva-St. Charles