If you thought that Illinois government might get a tiny breather after raising income taxes, think again.

The Illinois House's new revenue projection for next fiscal year, which begins in July, is $759 million lower than the governor's. And the House's forecast is also $2.2 billion below Governor Pat Quinn's projected spending for the coming fiscal year.

Quinn's proposed budget was whacked last month by Democrats and Republicans alike for its brutal slashing of several human-service programs. But even with those Quinn cuts, if the House revenue forecast is used in the final product, they'll still have to find $2.2 billion in additional spending reductions.

The bad news doesn't end there. According to some revised numbers issued by the auditor general this past Friday, next year's required state pension payment, including debt service, will be $6.2 billion.

Child-care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state's child-care-services budget after speaking with top officials in Governor Pat Quinn's office earlier this month. And the governor's budget office then told a Senate appropriations committee that no such cuts were being planned.

But when the governor last week unveiled his proposed budget for next fiscal year, he included a $350-million net cut in child-care spending, according to the House Democrats' analysis of the proposal.

The state's secretary of the Department of Human Services met with a group representing child-care providers last Monday and gave them some bad news. Prepare for $100 million in cuts to child-care programs, Michelle Saddler told the group.

According to a participant in the meeting, Secretary Saddler said the state could freeze intake of new clients, "dramatically" increase parental co-pays, cut rates to providers, and eliminate child care for parents who are in school or employment-related training. The meeting resulted in an urgent alert by Illinois Action for Children imploring supporters to immediately call the governor's office.

The $100-million cut would be for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. That cut would equal about a third of the child-care program's remaining budget, which comes from both state and federal revenue sources.

An out-of-state education-reform group raised a whopping $2.8 million in the days leading up to historic state caps on campaign contributions.

All of the money raised by Stand for Children's Illinois PAC came in five- or six-figure contributions from some very major Chicago-area business types. Members of the famed billionaire Pritzker family kicked in a total of $250,000 on December 29, two days before the end of the old campaign-finance system, which allowed for unlimited contributions to groups such as Stand for Children's PAC.