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Budget is inadequate, but it's just the beginning

Now it begins. After two years of campaigning to lower taxes and increase spending, Bruce Rauner was mandated to do the math and show his work. Unfortunately, the numbers simply don't add up.

The governor deserves some credit for delivering a budget just one month after being sworn into office. Given his transition to the executive branch and the fiscal challenges that we face, his prompt delivery of a budget is commendable. However, the content of his plan raises significant questions about its viability in the legislative process.

It's too early to throw our hands up. After all, this is just the beginning of a long process that will require the new governor and the legislature to negotiate a balanced approach to meet our needs.

The governor deserves credit for keeping his promise to increase education funding for Illinois students. However, I'm disappointed that Gov. Rauner's budget will disproportionately impact the working families of those same students.

Gov. Rauner's plan includes proposals that will undermine access to health services, child care, affordable college and retirement security for working- and middle-class families. These programs provide many of the work supports and opportunities that families need to succeed and respond to the economy.

When you compound that with his plan to slash funding for local units of government, you get a better image of how our communities will be impacted. Teachers, cops, firefighters will all be on the chopping block. For all the pain that Gov. Rauner's budget plan would extract from communities and the most vulnerable, the basic math still doesn't work in his proposal.

Gov. Rauner leaves a $2.2 billion hole in the budget by relying on unrealistic revenues from a questionable pension proposal. Even as the courts review a significant test case, the governor's plan banks phantom savings for a pension plan that may fail key legislative and judicial tests.

When we passed pension reform last year, we took care to exclude possible savings from budget plans pending a legal resolution. Democrats took a responsible and conservative approach. The governor's plan rejects that wisdom.

This was an important week for the governor, but it is just the beginning of the legislative process. There will be no easy solutions. With that truth in mind, I intend to work with the governor to produce a final budget that responds to our fiscal realities in a way that makes Illinois just as compassionate as it is competitive.

Democratic Sen. John Cullerton, of Chicago, is President of the Illinois Senate. He wrote this reaction to Gov. Bruce Rauner's budget at the request of the Daily Herald.

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