The following is from Keith Kelleher, president of SEIU* Healthcare Illinois
and Indiana, on the passage of the tax break package passed by the Illinois House earlier today.
By granting a large
tax break today to one of Illinois’ most prosperous companies, the
Illinois House has concentrated more wealth in the hands of the rich,
even as average workers are literally taking to the streets to decry
growing income inequality.
While we applaud the House for passing a
separate bill that expands the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage
households, the benefits of this measure are eclipsed by the magnitude
of the tax breaks lawmakers approved for the state’s corporate
heavyweights. For every one dollar in tax breaks the House has given to
workers struggling to propel themselves out of poverty, it has doled out
nearly two dollars to corporations.
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A movement that began in the streets has graduated to 5,500 feet of Pilsen loft space.
Liberate the Southside – an ad-hoc group of Chicago clergymen,
community organizers, and local residents – do not believe the “Occupy”
movement should be limited to geographic locations like streets and
cities. 
Second-year Congressman and nationally prominent Tea Party mouthpiece
Joe Walsh announced Thursday that he would run for re-election in
Illinois’ re-drawn 8th Congressional district – his current district,
discarding earlier intentions to run in the 14th. This is despite the
fact that his home county of McHenry is now in the 14th District and a
newly redrawn 8th district is now made up of majority Democratic voters.
While most of Illinois was taking in the 14-year prison sentence of disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich, hundreds of other state residents were at the nation's capitol yesterday 