The Road To Recovery For the State of Illinois Research Paper

The Road To Recovery For the State of Illinois - Research Paper Example There are many other states that have not recovered fully or partially from the recession aftermaths and Illinois is also among them. It has been facing crisis since last few years. The governor and authorities are striving to take the state out of the critical situation but things is not that much easy. Illinois? is facing many crises at present. In fact there is a cluster of crisis including jobs, energy, pension issue, education etc. The Governor of the state Pat Quinn is currently fighting with all these issues and he has also proposed some changes for the improvement of the situation. He has introduced some plans for the betterment of economic landscape, human rights, employment conditions and extra funding for education etc. Financial situation of the state is not stable at all and it has created many problems for every single person living in the state. Governor has proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2013 and that budget actually has a depth of solving these issues b y having around $58 billion. He thinks that this budget will put Illinois on the road to recovery and it will be recovered soon by such turmoil. Structural reforms are proposed for pension system of the state and Medicaid program (Quinn 22). The journey of the state towards recovery highly depends upon the leadership. The leadership having the capability of taking difficult decisions with confidence and with optimistic approach can overcome the issues being faced by the state. Unfortunately people of Illinois have been waiting for long for such decisions but now the right time is there and the leadership is taking critical decisions that are important for the fiscal recovery of the state. The budget proposed by Governor has everything that is needed to cater the magnitude of crisis faced by the state. Quinn proposed budget gained appreciation and importance in people eyes because he has demonstrated that he doesn’t believe in borrowing money because it ultimately puts pressur e on the state. Borrowing will lead to reserved surplus and problem will be transfer to next years. Medicaid Program is the important step taken towards the recovery of the state. The program aims to support the under-privileged class through so that they can get access to healthcare facilities and medication. The current funding is not fully curtailed but it is not appropriate. If borrowing happens then Medicaid budget will be underfunded up to $2.6 billion. Proposed budget will overcome the funding gap by bringing changes for instance; repayment rate would decrease for healthcare provider and tax on cigarette would be much higher. Crises are severe and it is believed that proposed changes are appropriate enough to take the state to the next level easily with plan and strategy (Bunch and Beverley 57). Without a cost cutting plan, Assembly would not approve this budget because if funding of the state for Medicaid program get ignored then it will put burden of $5billion and the next fiscal year will be full of crisis. Quinn has proposed to handle the cost of pension system that will consume 20% fund in next fiscal year. Programs that are not funded and are acting as a liability on state will not be a burden anymore and he has also asked employees and tax payers to contribute for taking the state out of this situation. Quinn is optimistic in solving these problems but civic federation still has concerns regarding this approach because according to them pain taken from previous years is not that much easy. In 2010, Quinn