Progress Illinois

Illinois labor representatives and U.S. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) and Bill Foster (D-Naperville) gathered in Chicago this morning on a national day of mobilization to call on House Republicans to stop holding families and seniors hostage in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations.

The Washington lawmakers, along with members of the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO and advocates for the poor and middle class, stressed that tax loopholes for Wall Street and the richest Americans be closed instead of cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.

“This is about real people who will suffer real pain if the wrong decisions are made,” said William McNary of Citizen Action Illinois.

Read more »

As lawmakers continue to make little progress in their negotiations over the federal budget, local senior rights advocates warn that proposed cuts in spending to the country’s social safety net would negatively affect many of the state’s elderly and most vulnerable residents.

The importance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid was the focus of a new report that illustrates the positive impact these programs have on the state’s economy, as well as those who receive the benefits.

“We need to remember Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are truly the foundation of the middle class,” said Emily Stuart, director at the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans. “Without them, the middle class would most certainly suffer.”

Read more »

As lawmakers race against time to work out a deal on the federal budget before the dreaded “fiscal cliff” goes into effect, protesters on Thursday called on U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to reject any plan that results in spending cuts to the country’s social safety net.

More than 100 demonstrators gathered in Federal Plaza for what organizers described as their effort to pressure the Democratic lawmaker to stand firm on a fiscal plan that allows the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for the top 2 percent of Americans, or those earning more than $250,000 a year.

Protestors were also calling on Durbin, who served on President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, to reject proposed cuts to social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, saying such a move would have a Great Depression-style effect for the most vulnerable of Americans.

Read more »