The legislation would increase the income tax from 3 to 5 percent and would make other changes to bring in billions of dollars in new revenue.<\/p>\n
Among those trying to hammer home the message was Georgia Winson, operations director for the Autism Program of Illinois.<\/p>\n
“The need is so extreme that we’re going to see change,” Winson said at the rally. “Every day that we wait to provide services, there are people getting lost.”<\/p>\n
But whether lawmakers are being swayed is a big question. They voted just last week to push back Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address into March, and traditionally the legislature waits until the very end of session in May to make major budget progress.<\/p>\n
Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, applauded the rally, but said too many Republican lawmakers are opposed to raising taxes.<\/p>\n
“That reality will keep some of the Democratic votes off of it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, said he was unsure if the legislative leaders and Gov. Quinn were hearing the message from protesters.<\/p>\n
Rep. Rich Brauer, R-Springfield said the November general election could sway lawmakers to delay any decisions on the budget.<\/p>\n
“They’ve put it off for a long time,” he said. “I don’t know if another year and half would make a difference.”<\/p>\n
Advocates are hopeful that lawmakers would take action on the budget, but they weren’t sure when.<\/p>\n
Rev. Warren Freiheit, bishop of the Central\/Southern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said legislators should realize the danger of losing hundreds of state service programs.<\/p>\n
“I hope this is not the only opportunity people have of voicing their opinions,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mary Patton, a local volunteer for the American Association of Retired Persons, said supporters should follow up with legislators on the issue.<\/p>\n
“It’s more than just a one-day thing,” she said.<\/p>\n
Rep. David Miller, D-Lynwood, is the chief sponsor of HB 174. He said GOP lawmakers who are against raising taxes should look at the primary election to see people’s views on the budget crisis.<\/p>\n
“Clearly, their strongest (gubernatorial) advocate of a no-tax pledge came in third,” Miller said of Republican Andy McKenna.<\/p>\n
The hour-long rally saw advocates waving signs and chanting, “We can’t wait,” in response to delaying action on the bill. The size of the crowd even prompted security to briefly close the Capitol doors.<\/p>\n
Members of several state organizations addressed the crowd, and several lawmakers appeared to show support for the legislation.<\/p>\n
Afterward, the group delivered thousands of signed letters to the offices of the House leaders and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno.<\/p>\n
This wasn’t the first time that social workers rallied for higher taxes. About 5,000 people came to the Capitol last June, which included a push by Gov. Quinn for higher taxes in the state budget.<\/p>\n
That didn’t happen, and tough decisions were put off until this year.<\/p>\n
Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton were invited to speak at Wednesday’s event but did not appear.<\/p>\n
John Guidroz can be reached at john.guidroz@sj-r.com.<\/p>\n
Read the original article from Journal Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Thousands converged at the Capitol on Wednesday to stress a strong message: we need a better budget now. Lawmakers they’re trying to sway, however, seem to be responding: not so fast. More than 2,000 people filled the Capitol to push lawmakers to approve a budget that would spare potential cuts to human service programs. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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