State Senator John O. Jones and State Representative John Cavaletto say there won't be a 50-percent cut in the state budget for those providing social services. Their comments came after attending a meeting in Mt. Vernon of various organizations fearful of losing funding as a result of the State Legislature not passing a state income tax increase. Jones called for Governor Pat Quinn to get off his high horse and stop acting like former Governor Rod Blagojevich in traveling around the state using scare tactics.

"Everybody's been misinformed.  They think the 50% budget that the House and Senate passed is at the Governor's office and he's going to sign it into law.  He isn't going to sign it into law.  In fact, they haven't even sent it to him.  They aren't about to send it to him.  That was just a ploy to stir everybody up.  Everybody thinks they're getting a 50% cut, but we'll work through this," Jones said.

State Representative John Cavaletto is also confident the predicted huge cuts won't take place and a plan will be worked out.   "At this point-in-time, I'd like to see what they're going to reduce and cut.  I think we'll have to look at some spending that we've got that's overinflated and we've overspent for six or seven years in this state.  I think they've got to take a good look at the programs they've added and if we can't pay for them, they need to get rid of them," Cavaletto said.

Jones says part of the problem is the Republicans have just been invited to the table to talk about the budget. He accused the Democrats of wanting the Republicans to vote for the tax increase and let them decide how to spend the money. Jones simply says 'it doesn't work that way'. Jones also predicted at the opening of the new Salem Education Center that Governor Quinn will sign the Capitol bill regardless of the final results of the budget.