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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 9:46 AM, bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com> wrote:
> Was Illinois budget balanced before his term?  What is the big business 
> (other than politics and sports).  I've always thought of Illinois in terms 
> of commodities, but, people still think of the South in terms of cotton 
> when most cotton is grown out west.  What does Illinois need to do to get 
> in the black.  Here in AZ, I don't know what we can do, we have always been 
> based on growth and construction.  Gov. Neapolatano (sp) is leaving us a 
> couple of billion in debt as she goes to H*meland S*curity.
>
Downstate, ag is huge of course, but we also have ag industry (ADM,
for one), Caterpillar, and others (such as the Saturn plant in
Bloomington and various small manufacturing companies), many
engineering firms that get their business worldwide (I did lots of
editing and proposal for three of them), and a bunch of drug companies
in the Chicago area. Plus, Chicago is the national headquarters for
many businesses.

To get into the black, Governor Rod should have raised the state
income tax a long time ago. His alternative was to shoot people on
Medicaid and shut down the schools. Our state government is actually
pretty svelte, at least compared with other states. Working as I do in
the state capital, I know lots of people who work in other agencies.
Everyone has taken on the duties of one or two other people's jobs and
we've all about reached the limit. Mostly, this is not causing small
children to die except at Children and Family Services where abused
children sometimes are murdered when they are sent back to their
abusive families. The cost of providing health services has exploded
everywhere, and that's killing every state government.

Marie