1. Repeal the offset and pay the $25 million a year it will cost to give older workers their full unemployment payments out of money the Illinois Department of Employment Security swears it has found.
2. Repeal the offset and pay the $25 million out of the IDES money and reduce taxes on businesses $25 million.
PLEASE NOTE
* $25 million a year is less than one-half of what IDES pays out in a WEEK.
* A reduction of $25 million a year in business taxes amounts to pennies.
* Madigan could simply decide to let repeal happen.
Instead, more than 22,000 older workers in Illinois will continue to get cheated. The members of the task force were:
-Monica Brar - budget analyst in the Governor's Office
-Tim Drea - major honcho with the AFL-CIO. Labor and business made sweetheart deals that has allowed offset repeal legislation to die in the Rules Committee of the State Assembly every year was introduced. Labor stopped opposing repeal in 2012.
-Ryan Gruenenfelder - our advocate from AARP. Applause.
-Kim Maisch - State director of NFIC/Illinois, a business group opposed to offset repeal, i.e. lobbyist. Far as I can tell, she seems to care about the people getting hurt by the offset but goes along with her fellow business lobbyists when it's time to vote.
-State Representative Kelly Cassidy - the House sponsor for offset repeal, HB3042. More applause.
-Jay Rowell - top honcho of IDES. His team didn't present the issue very well and is under the mistaken impression that we all get our unemployment as long as we stay out of work long enough. In addition, he claims IDES has all sorts of unexpected money from upgrades, tracking down fraud and not paying unemployment to inmates anymore. But no one believes him -- including Mark Brown from the Sun-Times.
-Originally, David Vite was appointed to the task force. Vite was president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, a very powerful business lobbyist and opposed to offset repeal. I believe he was the wizard behind the task force -- which delayed action for three years. He and labor worked together to kill offset repeal in the Rules Committee of the State Assembly every year. PLEASE NOTE -- lobbyists make sure your elected legislators never get to vote on the offset provision -- even the legislators who signed on to sponsor the repeal legislation. Remarkably, Vite stated that the offset was a moral issue and needed to be repealed. When Vite retired from IRMA, he was replaced by Rob Karr. Vite's a tough act to follow and Karr doesn't want to look like a weakling. (Weakling was not the word I really wanted to use, but this is a family blog.) Although Vite was replaced on the task force, he probably dreamed up the $25,000 tax reduction stipulation.
-State Representative John Bradley - from Marion. He didn't participate or help much.
-State Senator Sam McCann - from Jacksonville. He didn't participate much, and when he did, he was not on the side of older workers.
-State Senator Kwame Raoul - from Chicago. He didn't participate or help much.
-State Senator Sue Rezin - from Peru. She participated by phone.
-Jay Dee Shattuck - Illinois Chamber of Commerce. An enemy of offset repeal. A hard-nosed guy who announced at the last minute that business would support repeal ONLY if business got a $25 million tax reduction. Seems keeping the employment fund artificially high by cheating older workers since 1980 wasn't enough of a benefit. In addition, labor HATES business and will not compromise, which Shattuck and his buddies knew. It was a cynical move.
-State Senator Heather Steans - Senate champion of offset repeal. Applause.
