In an action that will force legislators to come back to Springfield to deal with the budget mess, Governor Pat Quinn rejected devastating cuts to human services today by vetoing part of the budget and sending it back to the General Assembly. Now, it’s up to legislators to fully fund vital care by passing a fair income tax increase.

Following through on his threat, Gov. Pat Quinn Wednesday vetoed part of the new state budget, triggering a return to Springfield later this month for lawmakers.

However, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton said they won’t bring lawmakers back until July 14, only one day before the first payroll of the new budget year is set to go out.

Quinn vetoed Senate Bill 1197, which contains billions of dollars for grants — many, but not all, of them for human service programs administered by local agencies. Quinn said the amount approved by lawmakers is only about 50 percent of what is needed.

“If it doesn’t properly fund human services, it’s a partial budget in my book,” Quinn said at a Statehouse news conference. “Service to others is the rent we pay for our place in God’s earth. This budget does not pay the rent.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Budget News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.