Cuts will be painful but they're necessary

We hear a lot about Gov. Rauner on TV, radio and in the press being blamed for the budget impasse in Springfield, how he hates poor people and so forth. The shadow governor, Madigan, and his accomplice in the senate, Cullerton, passed a budget that was $3 billion out of balance knowing full well that it would be vetoed.

And yet all Madigan and Cullerton need do to get their way is simply override the governor's veto. They have super, veto-proof majorities in both houses, so someone please explain to me why haven't the "people's champions" done this?

The obvious answer is Madigan and Cullerton don't really care about people and are playing politics with the budget while the governor is doing precisely what he was elected to do.

Are the cuts in the budget going to hurt? You bet. Recovery from addictive spending is tough, but I truly believe there are huge savings to be realized from eliminating unnecessary spending, expensive and wasteful duplicative programs and, when coupled with savings from corralling loose-to-nonexistent government oversight on all spending and the corruption that always accompanies government spending, they will go a long, long way to closing the gap.

Richard Bauer

Wheaton