Fiscal Responsibility and Benefits

14 January 2005

I admire and respect you a great deal. As a new member of the Budget Committee I request that you fight for our benefits. Do not allow cuts, there has to be a way to be fiscally responsible without sacrificing state budgets and beneficiaries of programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

I remember when you led a group of South Carolina elected leaders in a protest of impending medicaid cuts because in your words the cuts would have been a "budget death sentence for South Carolina. (The State 03/04/2004)." These cuts will not only be death to SC but also to IL, which has a large state deficit. Other than causing "budget death" to many states. The cuts will also harm our most vulnerable citizens: seniors and the poor (especially those along the SC I-95 corridor and in the inner city of Chicago).

We do need to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington. We can do this in other ways. Maybe we should consider putting off Social Security reform, a tough suggestion because I support private accounts, but the expense may dictate pushing back the timetable.

We can tighten up the requirements to recive and maintain public assistance benefits. I think that we need to have stringent requirements for those we help who are alcoholics and drug addicts. Their benefits need to depend on weather or not they comply with treratment. Part of this should be requireing random drug and alcohol tests for beneficiaries who recive benefits because of these afflictions. The purpose of these programs needs to be to help them get on their feet, not live on for the rest of their lives.

Please fight for the benfits as well as stricter rules to dtop the waste created by providing benefits to those who really do not try to better themselves.

Thank you for your time.