Who’s really to blame for state’s shortfall?

Governor Quinn wants to cancel raises for thousands of state employees to help cope with the Illinois budget crisis, but what about the tax breaks given to wealthy businessmen, maintained by a manipulation of legislators, via legislation to redistribute exorbitant amounts of money to their corporations?

What about the power granted to these corporate executives to pass the burden of their taxes onto the average citizen through an exploitation of governmental policies that ironically create a “corporate welfare?” And what should be done about the vast amounts of corporate money in offshore bank accounts to avoid taxation and, thus, to increase corporate, excessive profiteering — paid for by the rest of us?

One of the unstated objectives of large corporations is to reduce commercial accountability and to increase the average taxpayer’s responsibility to fund their multi-million-dollar businesses that are, in turn, already subsidized by state and federal governments. How can we calculate how much of their profits are the result of such “subsidy economics?”

The corporate shift of burden of payment to the public and the state’s lost revenue is based upon promises that these conglomerates will create more jobs; however, the outsourcing of American jobs, disguised as “free trade,” has eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country and has eroded the Illinois tax base.

Is it fair to the rest of us that services, such as education and health care, are cut? Is it fair to Illinois state employees that their raises are cut while the wealthy get richer because of our state’s governmental deals? Moreover, is it fair to blame the state employees’ pensions for the state’s budget deficit as well when our state government, wealthy corporations and banks created the shortfall?

Glen Brown

Naperville