Speaker Madigan: Rauner Takes Anti-Middle Class Agenda, Bankruptcy Plans to Schools
CHICAGO, IL – Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan released the following statement Wednesday after allies of Gov. Bruce Rauner announced plans for a state takeover of Chicago schools and to allow CPS to declare bankruptcy:
Seven months into a new fiscal year, the state still has no budget under Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, and it’s because he’s more interested in driving down the wages and standard of living of middle-class families than working together to solve our state’s problems.
Today, the sponsor of his new proposal admitted that this new plan is an attempt to force Governor Rauner’s agenda of destroying the middle class onto the Chicago Public Schools. Governor Rauner’s proposal could also help him achieve his goal of taking money away from public schools in order to establish more charter schools. Taking one unelected school board appointed by the mayor and allowing it to become a board of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats appointed by Republican Governor Bruce Rauner is not a step in the right direction.
Governor Rauner hopes to use a crisis to impose his anti-middle class agenda. Republicans’ ultimate plans include allowing cities throughout the state to file for bankruptcy protection, which they admitted today would permit cities and school districts to end their contracts with teachers and workers – stripping thousands of their hard-earned retirement security and the middle-class living they have worked years to achieve. When Detroit was granted bankruptcy protection, retirement security was slashed for employees and retirees. That is not the path we want to follow in Illinois.
The disaster in Flint, Michigan, is a very timely example of how reckless decisions just to save a buck can have devastating consequences on children and families. In April 2014, under Republican leadership, the state of Michigan appointed an emergency manager to Flint to address a financial crisis, and switched Flint’s water source to the Flint River, which had long been known to be a dirty river. An earlier study showed that water from the river could have been drinkable had it been treated at a cost of about $36,000 a year. A crisis created by a Republican takeover could have been averted at what amounted to a mere fraction of a fraction of the state’s budget. That is not the path we want to follow in Illinois.
