SPRINGFIELD-Following is the statement of SEIU Healthcare Illinois President Keith Kelleher in response to passage today of the Illinois stopgap budget.

“The stopgap budget approved today by the General Assembly, while a step in the right direction, is merely a Band-Aid for the self-inflicted wounds Bruce Rauner has caused to Illinois. All around the state we see the damage that his crisis has caused. Home healthcare agencies have shuttered their doors for good. Some 55,000 fewer children receive child care than a year before. Rape crisis centers, addiction services, violence prevention programs-the list of social services permanently damaged goes on and on.

“When the income tax rollback went into effect last year, we all know that its benefits rolled to the richest among us, to people like Bruce Rauner. What we need now are permanent, progressive revenue solutions to fully fund the needs of our most vulnerable and to maintain our infrastructure and so that we will never be in this position again.

“But none of this human suffering was necessary and all of it was avoidable. While today provides some temporary relief, as we head into November, we must remember that Bruce Rauner was willing to use working families, children, seniors and people with disabilities as human hostages to extract political concessions that had NOTHING to do with the welfare of the people of Illinois. And Illinois now is worse for it.”

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