With its deep cuts to higher education, Medicaid, pension benefits, and social services, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget is being called “reckless,” “heartless,” and “morally reprehensible.”

Rauner, who won a decisive victory over incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn in November, announced his budget plan before the Illinois General Assembly earlier this week. It lays out $6 billion in cuts in state spending on universities, health care, and local governments while calling for sharply reducing pension benefits for state workers—in keeping with Rauner’s recent attacks on public sector unions.

“Governor Rauner’s plan includes proposals that will undermine access to health services, child care, affordable college and retirement security for working- and middle-class families.”
—John Cullerton, Illinois State Senate

The governor called it a “turnaround budget” for a state facing budget shortfalls in the years ahead.

But Democrats, who hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the legislature, came out strongly in opposition to Rauner’s proposal. State Senate President John Cullerton, for example, said the plan would bring “pain” to working families in the state.

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“Governor Rauner’s plan includes proposals that will undermine access to health services, child care, affordable college and retirement security for working- and middle-class families,” Cullerton said. “These programs provide many of the work supports and opportunities that families need to succeed and respond to the economy.”

The Responsible Budget Coalition, which represents over 100 groups in Illinois, said the “unnecessary” cuts would have “lasting negative impact on our infrastructure and undermine our state’s ability to achieve long term economic stability.”

“The depth and breadth of the proposed cuts to essential services for our state’s most vulnerable residents are staggering and simply unacceptable,” said Heather O’Donnell, vice president of public policy and advocacy at Thresholds, a member of the Responsible Budget Coalition that provides housing and healthcare for thousands of people with mental illness in the state.

With such concerns in mind, a group of day care providers, health care workers, and activists gathered outside Chicago’s Thompson Center, which houses the Illinois state government, on Thursday evening to protest the cuts.

“I think people see numbers and they don’t think about people and they think we’ll just cut that and they don’t think about human consequences,” a writer named Mike Ervin, who is assisted every day by a state-paid home care assistant, told Chicago’s ABC News affiliate at the demonstration. 

Among the most egregious of Rauner’s proposals is his call to slash public university spending by nearly $400 million—representing a 31 percent decrease in funding.