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Spending priority is education

Downstate House candidates split by party on spending cuts. Republicans target public aid while Democrats focus on general budget tightening

Table 3
Spending priorities

If state spending is still tight in FY 1980, which area of spending should rank first in priority?

DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS

Incumbent

Challenger Total Incumbent Challenger

Total

Total

Education

66%

92%

73%

70%

55%

67%

70%

No answer

3%

0%

2%

6%

11%

7%

4%

Transportation

11%

0%

8%

3%

22%

7%

8%

Social services

3%

0%

2%

3%

0%

2%

2%

Business

0%

0%

0%

3%

11%

5%

2%

Tax relief

b%

0%

4%

6%

0%

5%

4%

Corrections

3%

0%

2%

3%

0%

2%

2%

Other

8%

8%

8%

6%

0%

5%

7%

DOWNSTATE candidates named education as their top spending priority somewhat more often than upstate House candidates, 70 per cent compared to 62 per cent. Upstate Democratic challengers were almost universally in agreement on the answer "education" with 92 per cent naming it as the priority for state spending. Among downstate Republican challengers, education was the No. 1 priority for 55 per cent of the candidates, while 22 per cent considered transportation No. 1 and 11 per cent ranked business first.

Six per cent of downstate incumbents from both parties singled out tax relief as a spending priority, but no challenger of either party named tax relief as a spending priority.

Other priorities among Democratic incumbents included education (66 per cent), transportation (11 per cent), social services (3 per cent), corrections (3 per cent) and various other categories (8 per cent), including the Environmental Protection Agency, full funding of state mandated local programs, and jobs.

Republican downstate incumbents who did not name education as their priority for spending were split among several categories (see table 4). The "other" priorities include the economy and public aid.

One surprising result of the downstate survey was that more Democrats named transportation as their top spending priority than did Republicans. In both the Senate and the upstate House surveys, the opposite was found. But the narrowness of the downstate margin, a mere 1 percent, makes a party label seem less important since fully 22 per cent of Republican challengers and 11 per cent of Democratic incumbents chose transportation first. Roads are in bad shape in some Democratic downstate districts and present funding distribution for the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) is unpopular in the Republican collar county districts, according to explanations given by respondents.

Public aid was named most often by downstate Republican House candidates(28 per cent) as the area of state spending which should be cut.

Only 10 per cent of downstate Democratic candidates named public aid in response to this question, but their most frequent response was "no answer" or a blank space on their written questionnaire (19 per cent). Some downstate Democrats who gave "no answer" admitted that they were simply unwilling to commit themselves so early or that no area readily came to mind as being the single most wasteful or least important.

Those downstate Democrats who did name an area for cost cuts were often not specific: 30 per cent named either bureaucracy (8 per cent), all agency budgets (12 per cent) or general cuts (8 per cent). Downstate Democrats who targeted a specific program for cuts most frequently picked on highway construction (15 per cent) followed by legislative commissions (10 per cent) and restricted additional spending (8 per cent), while a surprising 6 per cent mentioned human services.

Among downstate Republican House candidates, human services were chosen for cuts by 7 per cent, and 14 per cent had no answer to the question of spending cuts. But when Republicans did answer the question, they were less vague than Democrats. Just 11 per cent of Republicans named general cuts while 19 per cent named very specific areas for spending reductions, including the RTA, mental health, the Illinois Arts Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Board of Elections, the governor's office and the Department of Public Health.

Table 4
Spending cuts
If state spending is still tight in FY 1980, which area of spending is least important or in need of a cut?

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

Incumbent

Challenger

Total

Incumbent

Challenger

Total

Total

Restrict spending

12%

0%

8%

6%

0%

5%

7%

General cuts

15%

0%

10%

12%

11%

11%

11%

No answer

12%

31%

17%

15%

11%

14%

15%

All agencies

11%

15%

12%

6%

0%

5%

9%

Public aid

12%

8%

10%

23%

44%

28%

19%

Highway
  construction

15%

15%

15%

3%

0%

2%

9%

Legislative
  commissions

11%

8%

10%

6%

0%

5%

8%

Human services

6%

8%

6%

3%.

22%

7%

7%

Bureaucracy

9%

8%

8%

6%

0%

5%

7%

Other

0%

7%

2%

20%

11%

19%

10%

8/October 1978/Illinois Issues


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