Hundreds March and Protest to Highlight How Big Banks Profit from Toxic Bank Deals with State—and Governor Rauner’s Responsibility to Take Back Taxpayer Money for Home Care and Child Care

Home care and child care providers joined working parents, seniors, and community supporters on Thursday, October 20, to deliver a strong message to the big banks that profit from Illinois’ toxic interest rate swap deals—and to Governor Rauner who is failing to take meaningful action to reclaim the hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars lost to these deals.

During a protest march and a speakout at a local Chase Bank branch, which included delivering a letter for the bank’s CEO, caregivers and care recipients called for both the bank and Governor Rauner to take immediate action to stop the flow of taxpayer dollars into bank profits—so the funds can instead be invested in home care, child care and other crucial state programs.

Wall Street banks have already profited too much off of toxic swap deals with the State of Illinois, with Chase raking in $55 million to date—and they are positioned to take millions more in taxpayer dollars in immediate payouts that our state needs for home care, child care and good jobs.

Governor Rauner has used the Illinois budget crisis to cut child care for working families and home care services for people with disabilities. He claims there’s no money to protect and expand home care and child care services to families who need them, and to raise home care workers’ wages to $15 an hour—all while he continues to let Wall Street banks profit from toxic swap deals held by big Wall Street banks.

Home care and child care providers, care recipients and community supporters are calling upon these banks to give back the hundreds of millions they’ve already taken, and to renegotiate these bad bank deals so they won’t continue to profit off toxic swaps at the expense of seniors, people with disabilities, children, working parents, and their caregivers.

Governor Rauner needs to stand up to these big banks and show that he supports the interests of taxpayers and vulnerable Illinoisans who depend upon home care and child care–and not the profit interests of Wall Street bankers.

Governor Rauner’s recent announcement that his administration has made a new set of deals with the banks that delays a larger payout temporarily, while acknowledging his responsibility for fixing these deals, is far too little and seems intended only to appease public pressure while ensuring that big banks continue to reap extreme profits from these deals.

It’s time that he puts the interests of Illinoisans above the interests of bankers by pressuring the banks publicly to return the money these banks have taken from us through the toxic swap deals.