Winding Down

These next two days will be my last as an intern for Illinois Public Radio at the Capitol. It's been an amazing experience for the most part. I've made a lot of great friends here in Springfield and, I never thought I'd say this, but I'll miss this place when I'm gone; not so much the city itself, but the friends I've made here. It really stinks that after making so many wonderful friends, we'll most likely all end up scattered all over the place. I know that's how life goes, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Anyway, the House will be back in session today to deal with budget issues, but it doesn't seem any more likely they'll take a vote on a tax hike. Figuring out what is going to happen by tomorrow night is getting to be like trying to study a quantum physics textbook written in Sanskrit. Nobody can seem to agree on how big the budget deficit is at this point, much less how to fill the hole.

With less than two days left until the next fiscal years, the budget mess is playing havoc with social service agencies. Some are planning layoffs and service cuts unless an unexpected budget deal comes through to fully fund those providers. However, some are moving forward with cuts already. Threats of budget cuts are nothing new to social service agencies, but the threatened cuts have never been this big before. On top of that, with the economy still in the tank, borrowing money to hold them over until there's a full state budget isn't an option this year. Not to mention, raising money from private donors won't get most of these groups anywhere near the amount of money they need to avoid layoffs and service cuts.