Dan Sugrue
 

 


  
Vivan Sugrue  


  
 
Listen to Radio Ad

Email a Friend
 

 

 
 
Corruption We need to stop the corruption that exists in Illinois government. The recent conviction of Tony Rezko and the testimony of Ali Atta and Stuart Levine have shown how pervasive the practice of Pay to Play is in Illinois government. If elected, I will introduce legislation that would end Pay to Play and enact some of the toughest ethics legislation in the country.
Gas Prices

Here in Illinois, we have the highest gas prices in the country. One reason for that is because the State of Illinois imposes the fourth largest tax burden on gasoline in the nation. We have both a state fuel tax and a state sales tax on gasoline. Instead of raising the sales tax on gasoline, as my opponent, Kathy Ryg has voted to do, we could bring immediate relief to Illinois consumers by eliminating the sales tax on gas altogether.

Property Taxes 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 Blagojevich Administration 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 Governor Blagojevich 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.

Budget Priorities The Illinois Constitution requires that a balanced budget be submitted by the end of May each year. But Springfield continues to ignore the Constitution and spend money that it does not have. The Governor attempts to get around this by failing to pay the State’s pension obligations to state employees and failing to make Medicaid payments to Illinois doctors. This has put an increasing strain on the ability of doctors in Illinois to serve their patients and has resulted in an overflow of Illinois patients into hospitals and clinics in neighboring states.

We need to be serious about our priorities in Springfield, so that we focus first on paying our bills that we owe to state employees and our own citizens, before embarking on new, ever expansive government programs that we can’t afford.

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%.

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.

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.
Jobs With it's high taxes, excessive regulation and runaway spending, Illinois ranks 48th in the nation in economic performance and 47th in job growth ahead of only Michigan, Ohio and Louisiana. Businesses and therefore jobs, are leaving the state in droves. Over 727,150 people have left Illinois in the past 10 years alone. Since 1998, Illinois has suffered a net loss of 241,000 manufacturing jobs. The solution to this problem is not more regulation on business, but to attract more businesses and jobs back to Illinois. We can make Illinois more attractive to business by cutting personal and corporate tax rates and cutting back on state regulations.
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.




   
281 Crescent Knoll, Green Oaks, IL  60048
All content © 2008 Dan Sugrue
Paid for by Friends of Dan Sugrue.
A copy of our report is available at the State Board of Elections, Springfield, Illinois