More taxes to pay for more political pay offs.
SPRINGFIELD -- Illinois lawmakers didn't spare human service programs and schools from the worry of losing billions of dollars in state funding, but they did manage to approve $500 million worth of their pet projects during the closing hours of the spring session.
There is $40 million set aside for a West Side campus of Chicago State University, $200,000 for work at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, $300,000 for the Old Town School of Folk Music and $150,000 for the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Unity Temple in Oak Park.
Another $500,000 is destined for a Georgia developer who has promised to build a training center at 76th and Racine to train employees of Popeye's Chicken and other workers and to house his corporate offices.
Playgrounds, libraries and sidewalks in the Chicago area also stand to get millions of dollars worth of substantial makeovers courtesy of Illinois taxpayers as a result of the legislation.
But how those projects got to the front of the line for state money ahead of early childhood education, care for the developmentally disabled and student-loan programs on the chopping block has some groups fuming.
"We're not even dealing in reality if people are thinking about spending money on these kinds of things when people are talking about decimating programs for the most vulnerable," said Diana Rauner, executive director of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, an advocacy group that is seeking to preserve $383 million for early-childhood programs.
A top aide to Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) said he favors both the legislative projects in the capital program and an income-tax hike that would stave off the crippling cuts.
Gov. Quinn, who pushed for a statewide construction program, has said he won't sign off on the public works program without first having a balanced operating budget.
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