The Illinois General Assembly’s spring session came to a close early Saturday as the House of Representatives approved a proposed new $50.6 billion dollar budget. State Representative Mike Marron (Republican of Fithian) says despite the Governor and Democratic leaders saying the budget is balanced – that’s not the case…
{AUDIO: ‘’This budget excludes a means to pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in pay increases for hard-working union employees that are scheduled to receive those increases in the upcoming fiscal year. This not only puts a significant gap in the F.Y. 24 budget, it also fails to determine how we are going to take care of our state employees.’’}
Representative Marron (shown above) had announced earlier that he was not going to support the new budget proposal after it was delivered to his office at 10:30 at night….
{AUDIO: ‘’(The) Democrats of Illinois showed the people their true colors over the last three years – increasing legislative pay over 25-percent – spending by over 25-percent in this budget compared to when I started five years ago. And resorting to the old Madigan playbook of hiding taxes and fees in special budget tricks masking the true colors of their spending for months.’’}
The 73-38 party-line vote in the House came around 2:30 a.m. Saturday after lengthy debate.
State Senator Paul Faraci, a Democrat from Champaign, applauded the new budget package. ‘’Illinoisans deserve a state budget that is balanced, helps our local economy and protects funding for those who need it most. I believe that this year’s budget accomplishes those three things,’’ said Faraci. The Senator said the new budget further invests in job training and higher education access by providing needs based tuition assistance and specialized development programs to build the workforce pipeline and increase enrollment at community colleges and universities.
Senator Thomas Bennett said he felt the budget was a failed opportunity to help the people of the state. Senator Bennett said his colleagues in the Senate Republican Caucus had advocated for several important proposals, including finally offering proper funding for services for the state’s developmentally disabled community, rebates for downstate families facing high utility costs, and continuing a scholarship program which helps children in failing school districts to attend better performing schools. But Senator Bennett says majority party Democrats chose different priorities in the final budget, including hundreds of millions of dollars for pork projects for Democratic districts and half a billion dollars to provide free top-tier healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
State Representative Adam Niemerg (Republican from Dietrich) said the budget prioritizes illegal immigrants over the needs of kids. He added, ‘’Once again, the House passed a budget in the middle of the night while the vast majority of Illinois residents were asleep. And Representative Niemerg said the budget gives legislators a pay raise while Illinois families are struggling to survive.
