Combine borrowing, cuts to fix budget

I read with approval Rep. Sullivan’s recent letter in the Daily Herald in which he supports the idea of short-term borrowing by the state of Illinois at the rate of 3 percent to pay overdue bills on which the state is now paying 12 percent interest.

To address criticism this borrowing would further diminish the credit rating of Illinois, I suggest that the borrowing legislation be coupled with provisions requiring annual debt reductions through budget cuts such as this: For a certain number of predetermined years, reduce payouts to all Illinois departments and non-contractual recipients by about 2 percent per annum, more or less, using the savings to reduce the Illinois debt and balance Illinois’ annual budgets to the point where credit rating agencies give Illinois an AAA credit rating.

Having worked for the government a few times in my life, I know that each department can handle small incremental reductions in their annual budgets without noticeably impairing service.

If Illinois legislators cannot manage to compromise to implement budget expenditure reductions such as stated, our fate is much like that of Greece today.

Larry Johnson

Mundelein