Jobs & Economic Growth

“Illinois’s crisis is unique in that it is purely a creature of mismanagement by elected officials.” -Josh Barro, “Is Illinois the New California?”, realclearmarkets.com, June 22, 2010.

Illinois is currently facing a $13 billion budget debt. We still have $6 billion in unpaid bills left over from 2010, and have had to borrow $4 billion to meet our pension fund requirements. The sad thing is that this state of affairs is entirely of our own making. Unfortunately, neither Governor Quinn nor the Democrats in the Illinois legislature are prepared to take the steps needed to correct the issue. Instead, Governor Quinn is pushing a 33% tax increase on hardworking Illinois families. Illinois ranks 45th to 50th in countless economic indexes and rankings. Illinois has the worst job growth record in the Midwest, Indiana has the best. The only separation is the Wabash River. We lose more jobs to Indiana than India.

I am committed to re-creating a business friendly environment in Illinois. As your state representative, I have committed to vote against any tax increase. Instead, I believe we need to go through our budget line by line, item by item, and bureaucrat by bureaucrat to eliminate the waste and corruption rampant in the budget and redirect our investments back to essential services like education.

Education

Education is an investment by society in the futures of our children. As a college professor and teacher, I fully understand the need for a fully-funded educational system. Eliminating waste and corruption in our state budget will allow us to fund essential programs like education, and allow us to improve our society and state for future generations. We need to keep funds close to the students in the classroom where they do the most good.

Pro-Second Amendment Rights
As a strong supporter of the Bill of Rights, I believe that “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Pensions

As if our budgetary problems weren’t bad enough, Illinois is also facing an enormous deficit in its pension system. Illinois’ system is stressed to the breaking point – we face a liability of anywhere from $64 billion to a whopping $250 billion. This liability is one that we have not chosen to pay ourselves, but that we are leaving for our children, grandchildren, and even great- grandchildren to pay for us. Illinois needs to take steps to shore up our pension system once and for all. We need to properly fund our pension system and eliminate the practice of diverting pension funds to other spending programs.

Let’s make Illinois Great Again,