•February 24, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Here I go again.

I do so to exhort readers to contact your legislators to demand that action be taken to begin to right the ship of state.

Once-proud Illinois is badly wounded. The state is more distressed than at any time since the Great Depression, when teachers were paid in scrip, as they may again be in Chicago in the near future.

Much of the blame lies at the feet of two proud, bull-headed men in Gov. Bruce Rauner and Speaker of the House Mike Madigan. Like Nero’s fiddling while Illinois crashes, they are too obdurate to be the first to pick up the phone and say simply, “Let’s sit down and address the big problems we face in Illinois and Chicago.” That would show weakness, they think.

The saddest part of this is that only the “little people” are suffering. Those in need of mental health services; seniors who need help with household chores, and college students who have been denied tuition grants awarded a year ago.

Lutheran Social Services, a major deliverer of social services (most such state services are delivered not by the state but by groups such as LSS) has laid off 750 employees because of non-payment by the state for services provided.

All the while the state is paying 12 percent penalties to vendors for its late payments. What a way to run a railroad.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.