In response to the unconstitutional, unbalanced budget proposals Democrat leaders are moving through the General Assembly, State Senator Bill Brady(R-Bloomington) said that the Democrats’ budget proposals are more of the same failed budget policies that have created Illinois’ serious fiscal problems.
“Democratic lawmakers have spent over a decade raising taxes and passing bloated, unworkable budgets,” said Brady. “Republicans have repeatedly expressed a willingness to work with our Democrat counterparts to negotiate a budget plan. We’ve simply said that we want to focus on money-saving, job-creating reforms before exploring any new revenue. It’s unfortunate that Democrats are unwilling to even talk about reasonable structural reforms that could boost the economy, create jobs and increase stability for Illinois’ core services.”
Brady said that Illinois has the 2nd highest property tax rate in the nation, and has repeatedly been called the ‘worst run state in the country’.
“Structural reforms are necessary to return Illinois to sound fiscal footing. In addition to passing a balanced budget, we need to pass pro-business reforms that will stimulate natural revenue growth,” said Brady. “Illinois has suffered through 12 years of irresponsible spending under Democrat leadership, and the time has come for us to find real, reasonable solutions to our fiscal problems. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.”
Despite repeatedly promising to make substantive compromises with Democrat leaders during budget negotiations, Governor Rauner’s good-faith efforts have been summarily rejected by uncooperative Democratic lawmakers. “Unfortunately, Democrat legislators are more interested in scoring political points than working with Governor Rauner and Republican legislators in the General Assembly. They are completely unwilling to help fix the problem they created.”
Senator Brady also praised Governor Rauner’s legislation that was introduced in the House and Senate last week. He signed on as a chief co-sponsor to that legislation.
“We must fundamentally reengineer how we do business in Illinois, and Governor Rauner has remained committed to reforming state government, instituting term limits, freezing property taxes, enacting lawsuit reform, eliminating partisan gerrymandering, and reforming workers’ compensation,” said Brady “I am delighted to be co-sponsoring every piece of this legislation, and I will continue to work with Governor Rauner towards passing structural reforms to fundamentally change state government in Illinois.”