Democrats, unions must share pain

For the past month, we have heard the very real cries of people in need and of those who are working hard and giving of themselves every day to help those in need.

We also believe firmly that severe funding cuts to programs that help children, those with mental illness, physical disabilities and addiction illnesses would cause catastrophic problems and could drive up illness, poverty and crime. None of us wants that.

In fact, we're sick of those people being used as pawns in this tired political theater.

We have heard Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's near daily litany of all who would be hurt and lost if state officials don't act.

We also remember hearing this: "What I have found is that in a bind, human beings want to help their neighbor. They want to help themselves, but they understand that working together oftentimes is the best way to get through a crisis. The bottom line is shared sacrifice in tough times. That's what Americans do."

Quinn told the Daily Herald that back in March, when he said public employees should be open to concessions and cost savings.

We agree with what he said then. It's time for him, his fellow Democrats and the unions who have long supported them to recognize that the time for shared sacrifice is now.

We also have heard the very real cries of our neighbors and friends all around Illinois who are working more and making less. Or who are un- or underemployed and working hard to reinvent themselves in this tough economy. Thousands of Illinoisans, hundreds of thousands of Americans, are struggling day to day. Many, many of us are dealing with layoffs, pay cuts and furlough days.

An excellent analysis by Daily Herald Staff Writer Dan Carden showed that Illinois has far fewer state workers per capita than many other states, including those similar in size. We understand that laying off thousands of state workers would cause horrible problems that would quickly compound in the private sector. But we also noted with interest that most other states are much farther along toward cutting state worker pay and requiring furloughs. California will save $1.3 billion by requiring 238,000 workers to take two unpaid days off per month. Michigan will save $22 million by giving 37,000 state workers six unpaid days off. Illinois has 51,219 workers. Hawaii has fewer, 46,500 workers, and it will save $688 million with three unpaid days off monthly. It's pretty reasonable, then, to extrapolate that Illinois could save somewhere close to Hawaii's $688 million with similar action. Yet we've heard nothing like this from Quinn, the Democrats or the union leaders for months. It's time all parties start making some cuts and some sacrifices. We know we can't entirely slash our way out of this deficit.

Shared sacrifice in tough times. We expect that before we'll support sharing more of our money to fund this government.