Dan Sugrue on the Issues

 

Jobs

Despite a massive (and unconstitutional) 12 billion dollar deficit and
over 11% unemployment, the Democratic machine in Springfield still has
not learned the lesson that you cannot tax and spend yourself into
prosperity. Despite a 39% increase since 1998, (adjusted for inflation) there have been no serious efforts to reform excessive spending in Springfield.

 

The way to bring jobs back to Illinois is to make Illinois a more
friendly place to do business. We need to provide incentives that
encourage more small businesses and more job creation in Illinois.
More jobs in Illinois also bring more tax revenue to Illinois
government. We should be lowering instead of raising individual and
corporate taxes in Illinois. We should cut tax rates for newly formed
corporations in Illinois. We need to cut excessive regulation, and
look at Illinois' small business as a source of job creation, and not
a source of tax revenue.

 

 

State Spending

Over and over, we hear Illinois politicians moan that we need more revenue in state government. But the cause of the budget crisis we face in Illinois is not due to a lack of revenue but runaway spending. Since 1990, state spending has increased by 44%, while the population of Illinois has increased by only 12%.

 

State employee pensions have become so bloated and have been abused so much (with some state employees collecting multiple pensions) that there is now an unfunded liability of 90 billion dollars owed by the taxpayers of Illinois to state workers. That's $7,000 for every man, woman and child in the State of Illinois. We should move from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan (which the rest of us have in the private sector) to keep the system solvent and relieve the strain on the budget.

 

We can put a brake on this reckless government spending by applying PAYGO to the state budget process. PAYGO simply means that we pay as we go. Any increase in spending must be offset by cuts in the budget elsewhere. It would make lawmakers think twice in before embarking on a new program.

 

 

Corruption

Despite the impeachment and removal of Rod Blagojevich this year, little has changed in Illinois. The same people who supported and contributed to Ex-Governor Blagojevich are still in power down in Springfield, and have changed very little, despite their promises to the contrary.  Here in Lake County, the head of the Lake County Democratic Party has had two of his campaign workers plead guilty for forging the names of dead people on his nominating petitions.

 

Despite promises to clean up the system, Governor Quinn and Speaker Madigan took the promise of campaign finance reform and turned it on its head. Now, instead of limiting contributions for everyone, the new law limits contributions for everyone except legislative leaders, so that more power is now concentrated in the hands of Speaker Madigan and Minority Leader Cross, and less in the hands of individual legislators and the people they represent.

 

Illinois has earned a sad reputation as one of the most corrupt states in the Union. More than a blow to state pride, this corruption has cost jobs here in Illinois as businesses are reluctant to operate in a state where they fear that they will not get a fair shake from the government because they have no political connections. If we want to attract more businesses and jobs back to Illinois, we need to clean up our state.

 

 

Transparency

One way to reign in both runaway spending and government corruption is to introduce more transparency in the budget process. We need to a have an easily accessible, searchable online database in which we can track every government contract, every expenditure, its purpose, and who authorized it. Legislation that would do just that unanimously passed the Illinois House, where it unfortunately met the fate of most good legislation in Illinois and died in the Illinois Senate.

 

 

Property Tax

Illinois families are also burdened by ever increasing property taxes which put an enormous strain on our family budgets. I believe that we can help relieve the strain of high property taxes by doubling the Illinois income tax credit that homeowners receive for payment of their property taxes. We can also increase the Homestead Exemption from $6,000 to $7,500 and increase the Senior Homestead Exemption from $4,000 to $5,500.

 

 

Illinois Roads

Despite the fact that a sizeable portion of the State budget is dedicated to maintaining our roads, Illinois roads are still in terrible shape. Why is that? A big part of the problem is that, over the last five years, the Illinois Democrats has siphoned off over 3 Billion dollars from funds dedicated to maintaining our roads, into the general fund, to be spent on pet projects.

 

We need to send people to Springfield who will not give in to illinois Democrats and allow him to divert this money from the Roads Fund, but instead will fight to spend it the way it was intended to be spent, repairing and maintaining our roads, which are badly in need of repair.

 

 

Immigration

At a time when we have high unemployment in Illinois, the last thing we need is to encourage illegal immigrants to come to Illinois and compete for jobs with U.S. citizens. If elected, I promise to assist the Federal government in enforcing our immigration laws.

 

 

Education

Only 32 percent of Illinois public elementary school students are reading at grade level. In middle school, that number drops to 30 percent, and by the time they reach 12th grade, only 20 percent are at the level they need to succeed in college. The problem is not a lack of funding. Funding for education in Illinois has risen by an average of 4.3% a year for the past eight years. The solution is increased competition in education. We can start by eliminating the cap on charter schools in Illinois. We can also help families afford the cost of sending their children to private schools by increasing the Illinois Education Expense Tax Credit from $500 per family to $4,000 per child.