Government-funded human services are defined in specific terms relating to state-level administrative structures and the state's annual budget. These services do not technically include significant portions of the budget dedicated to health care and education. Human services, so narrowly defined, are provided primarily by the Department of Human Services (IDHS), the Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS), the Department of Aging (DoA), the Department of Health public (IDPH) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA). When defined this way, human services represent more than 23 percent (over $6 billion) of the current fiscal year (2010) state operating budget. State human services-oriented departments, and the affiliated nonprofit agencies that so often provide these services, are in particular financial jeopardy during the current recession. It is important to understand why this is so, as these services are provided to many of the most vulnerable among us: physically and developmentally disabled, the elderly, poor children, at-risk youth, the mentally ill, and those in need of healthcare. addiction treatment. Two major economic factors determine our current situation of huge budget deficits: the recession caused by the real estate bubble and the stock market crash and consequently the reduction of government revenues (income tax and sales tax); and the long-term structural deficit of our state's tax system. This structural deficit reflects the decades-long disappearance of at least 200,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs and overall stagnant wages, as well as a dysfunctionally flat, low, and regressive state income tax. According to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, we have experienced a decade-long… paper-based center. Since 2008, the federal government has infused trillions of dollars to "bail out" the financial system: Wall Street and the major banks. The $700 billion stimulus package was, by comparison, a drop in the bucket, both in relation to the financial rescue plan and the need for $2 trillion in increased consumer demand. In this context, human services funds have already distributed these sums several times. Given these realities, it is incumbent upon our state officials and legislature to act decisively to address both the immediate needs and the long-term structural deficit. It is difficult to understand inaction in the face of both desperate need and clearly available solutions. Given understanding and political will, our state can easily go from being the worst example to the best. Leadership, however, will have to originate at the popular level.