Needing Funding to Provide Funding

by Dora Raymaker · 2009-07-15 09:42:00 UTC
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Needing Funding to Provide Funding in Illinois

control loop diagram with the following bubbles, each one which points to the one to the right in a big circle: insufficient domestic savings, monetarize debt, inflation, expectations of future inflation, consume now, buy on credit, insufficient domestic savings...This was going to be an update on my State Budget Cut Watch in this week's news potpourri, but then I got going with it and it got longer and longer and--

Illinois just made some pretty severe cuts.

In fact, he [Dale Morrissey CEO of Developmental Services Center] added, in three decades on the job he's never seen a state budget mess have this severe an effect on social-service funding.

"I've never seen it this bad and I've never seen it go this far," he said.

Jobs and programs being cut by one or the other of the two local agencies allow parents of developmentally disabled clients to leave their homes and earn a living. They keep people with disabilities in homes and employed. They help the homeless and keep those with mental health issues out of emergency rooms and police squad cars.

So here's the thing--without the services, a number of people are no longer able to work or avoid crisis situations. Because they are no longer working, they are no longer paying taxes. Because they are no longer paying taxes, they are no longer contributing to the funding that would provide them with the services to enable them work, and pay taxes, and support themselves. Without the services, people are more likely to enter crisis situations and use significantly more costly services such as emergency housing assistance and hospital emergency care.

So we end up with people who have no jobs, people who are in costly crisis situations, and because of these two things even less chance of economic recovery (not to mention anything resembling quality of life).

In order to say anything conclusive of the financial and health and safety impact a real analysis would have to be undertaken, but the potential for a vicious cycle that quickly becomes very hard to break is pretty clear.

Has such an analysis happened? Or are these types of decisions merely panic reactions?

Dora Raymaker
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