Republicans Slam Pritzker Budget Plan
House Minority Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) speaks with reporters in the Illinois Statehouse in February 2020. Durkin and Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) criticized Governor JB Pritzker’s budget proposal Wednesday.
Republicans are in the super minority in both the House and Senate in Springfield. That means the Governor and the Democrats don’t need their input, or votes, to accomplish their tasks.
So, Republicans were puzzled Wednesday when Governor JB Pritzker aimed much of the blame for the state’s fiscal condition at the GOP.
“We want to work with you, but the fact is by what you announced today, I don’t know if it’s a bluff or if it’s a threat, but the fact is that we’re not gonna back down,” said House Minority Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs), directing ire toward the Governor. “We believe the state of Illinois can do a lot better for its citizens with their money, not your money, and not my money.”
Durkin alleged the Governor’s budget proposal was “smoke and mirrors.”
“By rejecting last year’s tax increase, Illinois voters demanded reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods). “We do not see that reform here today. Instead of reforms the state so desperately needs, he has put us on track to continue to move money around, raise taxes on businesses, blue collar workers, and the manufacturing sector here in Illinois. The Governor continues to show just how out of touch he is with everyone else when we all have to balance our own budgets. The Governor is failing to do that. He has no real concept of what it means to live within a real budget and make real choices based on real money.”
Durkin said the Governor’s plan to eliminate tax loopholes is raising taxes on business and wouldn’t be fair.
“There is a difference between loopholes and incentives,” Durkin said. “Incentives are what create jobs, grow our economy, and keep our families in Illinois. Loopholes, on the other hand, are what tycoons use to avoid paying taxes in Illinois by parking money in the Cayman Islands or using questionable property tax exemptions. Those are loopholes.”
Durkin was alleging to Pritzker’s offshore investments and infamous toilet scandal.
McConchie said the Pritzker budget isn’t realistic.
“He’s embracing gimmicks that his predecessors have done by ignoring this constitutional requirement to live within the existing revenue amounts,” McConchie said. “Instead, he’s counting on $1.5 billion in new revenue through hopeful statutory changes. Last year, the Governor signed a budget that was made with magic money from Washington, DC that never came to fruition.
Durkin shot back on Pritzker’s assertions that Republicans haven’t come up with cuts.
“The Governor needs to get off this issue of ‘where are your cuts?’ How about, where are your reforms, Governor? Where are the reforms of pensions? Where are the reforms on Medicaid? That’s where the real money is being spent in Illinois, but you refuse. You refuse to touch that,” Durkin said. “It’s not about cuts, it’s about reforming state government. No one wants to talk about the golden goose, that is the pension systems, and other areas in health care debts that continue to grow by leaps and bounds without basic reforms regarding the management of the programs and also the distribution.”
When asked why the Governor was attacking Republicans, Durkin said he believes Pritzker blames the GOP for the failure of Pritzker’s graduated tax referendum in November.
“I’m flattered that the Governor thinks Republicans in the House and Senate have derailed his grand agenda,” he said. “Illinoisans woke up last November about the spending that has been going on in Springfield.”