Not a single Republican lawmaker voted for the $56-billion budget that was sent to the Governor early Monday morning, including area lawmakers. State Senator Jason Plummer says eight years under Governor Pritzker have given Illinois families a bigger government, higher costs, and fewer reasons to stay.
“It’s an irresponsible budget. We are supposed to have a balanced budget and it’s clearly not balanced. It takes massive tax increases on Illinois families and businesses to pretend its balanced. What we need is a budget that prioritizes Illinois families, not a budget that prioritizes pet projects and Illinois politicians.”
Plummer says as a result Illinois continues to fall behind with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and economic growth that is significantly lagging behind our neighbors. He says families and businesses are fleeing the state in droves because they cannot afford the cost of doing business or raising a family in Illinois.
State Representative Blaine Wilhour says he hears complaints from residents in his district about why does my government hate me and why are they paying for an incompetent Governor.
“It’s an addiction. This state is addicted to spending money they don’t have. It’s addicted to creating programs it can’t afford. It’s addicted to making promises it can’t keep, and it’s addicted to coming back to the tax payers constantly to clean up the mess. Since 2019 tax payers in this state have been hit with 77 billion dollars of tax increases, 77 Billion Dollars.”
Wilhour says even with the increases Springfield is still broke. State Representative Charlie Meier voted no, saying the record-breaking, tax-hiking budget puts the Democratic political agenda ahead of the people of Illinois. He says Democrats once again broke their promises and abandoned our local workshops, did nothing to provide meaningful tax relief, and created a slew of new taxes to fuel their spending spree while sending Illinois consumers to neighboring states to spend their hard-earned money.
