- A drastic cut to an Illinois program that pays for funerals and burials for the poor drew protests Tuesday from a group of Chicago pastors.
Pastors United for Change said the program pays funeral homes and cemeteries when families on public aid can't afford the cost. It pays about $1,100 for a funeral and about $500 for a burial.
The Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church in Chicago predicted "a national embarrassment" if funeral homes are forced to turn away families and bodies pile up "in President Barack Obama's home state."
Chicago in general and Illinois specifically are already a national embarrassments, seeing as how democrats are giving money to wealthy corporations and democrats are attacking union contracts. It's like living in bizarro world.
Quinn responded Tuesday that he believes everyone deserves a decent funeral and he'll look at the budget to see what can be done.
Quinn's budget had proposed cutting the program to zero. The version approved by the House and Senate cut the program to $1.9 million, from $12.6 million in the last fiscal year.
If you're dead, you probably don't care about a funeral, no matter how much Quinn thinks you "deserve" it. We don't recall any such provisions in ordinance, law or government document. And if you were a recently deceased muslim or Lutheran, would you even be caught dead (pun intended) having a Make Believe pastor presiding over your funeral?
How about all the unclaimed and unknown bodies be logged properly for possible future identification, then they all get cremated to save on morgue storage, coffin construction, transport, grave digging and burial. Same for the "can't afford it" crowd.
This "cradle-to-grave" welfare, literally, has to stop.
How about all the unclaimed and unknown bodies be logged properly for possible future identification, then they all get cremated to save on morgue storage, coffin construction, transport, grave digging and burial. Same for the "can't afford it" crowd.
This "cradle-to-grave" welfare, literally, has to stop.