Illinois African American Coalition for Prevention responds to Gov. Quinn’s Budget

Last week, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn presented a five year budget to the state’s General Assembly.  The pundits, policy wonks and concerned citizens have all weighed in and now it’s time to act.

The idea receiving the most attention is, of course, the Governor’s proposal to make permanent the individual and corporate income tax increase, which is set to expire in January 2015. Whether you agree with making the income tax increase permanent or not, you have to admit that Illinois is better off than it was five years ago. This includes 250,000 new private sector jobs, over 9,000 newly registered businesses and the lowest unemployment rate we’ve witnessed in quite some time.

At the same time, however, it’s no secret that not all of Illinois’ residents have shared in the state’s improved economy over the past five years. Whether it’s unusually high, disparate rates of violence, unemployment, home foreclosure, or incarceration, our state’s African American community (both middle and lower income) is increasingly finding itself locked in, locked out, or locked up.

In short, our state’s African American community has a tough road ahead; especially for those of us actively engaged in ensuring an adequately funded safety net for our community’s most vulnerable – the poor, elderly, disabled, and children. It is the ILAACP’s position that the Governor’s proposal to make the individual and corporate income tax increase permanent is necessary and deserves our support. It will make travelling the road ahead a lot less hazardous and prevent further draconian spending cuts to critical human services.

Let’s not forget that for the past five years, in an effort to weather the worst national economic crisis since the Great Depression, Illinois has made unprecedented cuts totaling $5 billion to public safety, public education, social services and health care. These cuts, which include $1.2 billion in human services alone, combined with the state’s inability to pay human service providers in a timely manner, have placed a substantial number of agencies that serve high-need African American communities in jeopardy. In fact, within the past three years, four of the oldest and largest African American managed human service agencies in Illinois have been forced to close their doors. And we still have a $6.3 billion backlog in unpaid bills, which continues to place unfair and unbearable pressure on agencies to continue their mission work.

The fact is that the Governor’s proposal to make the individual and corporate income tax permanent represents the largest portion of revenue for the state in FY 2015. Our community’s survival depends on this revenue. Without it, we lose over $20 billion, the cuts begin again, and we risk witnessing ever worsening conditions in our communities that, quite frankly, can’t afford to get any worse.

The ILAACP also supports, and will monitor, how the Governor plans to invest, over the next five years, the revenue generated from making the income tax permanent; proposals we believe will positively impact our state’s African American community:

• A $1.5 billion investment in the Birth to Five Initiative that connects mothers to prenatal care, creates universal access to quality early care, and provides parents the support they need to raise successful children.
• A $6 billion investment in public education that puts more money in classrooms, expands college scholarships for low-income communities, and creates unique opportunities for students to access higher education.
• Doubling the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), an anti-poverty, pro-job creating tax credit to provide relief to working families and strengthen our state’s economy.

The ILAACP also supports the above investment proposals because, like all effective prevention strategies, they focus on strengthening protective factors that support safer, healthier, and more resilient African American children, families, and communities. Research clearly demonstrates that these prevention oriented policies ultimately result in substantial cost savings to the tax payer. For every dollar we invest in prevention, we save the taxpayer seven times that amount.

Providing expectant mothers with access to high quality pre-natal care significantly increases the chances of giving birth to a healthy child while significantly reducing avoidable visits to the hospital emergency room, costs which are often times picked up by the taxpayer in the form of higher insurance premiums. Providing that healthy child with access to high quality pre-school education, making increased investments in K-12 public education, and expanding opportunities for youth to attend college significantly increases that child’s ability to make a successful transition to adulthood while significantly reducing avoidable costs associated with adolescent delinquent behavior and, if left unchecked, unsustainable incarceration. We know that a good, solid education that connects to quality jobs and the capacity to build wealth, not only gives people the tools they need to build better lives and better communities, it can impact generations. And we know that economic supports can mean the difference between families’ survival and their ability to thrive.

The Illinois African American Coalition for Prevention urges our legislators to put party politics aside during this election year and pass a budget that continues to heal the people of the state of Illinois and moves us forward.

To read the ILAACP’s Detailed Analysis of Governor Quinn’s Proposed FY2015 Proposed Budget, please click here.

To read a full transcript of the Governor Quinn’s FY2015 Budget Address, please click here.

To review Governor Quinn’s Proposed FY2015 Budget, please click here.

In service,

Malik S. Nevels, J.D.
Executive Director