Sen President John Cullerton says he’s “eager to hear what the governor’s plans are on Wednesday, but it’s (the state’s) in bad shape, and we want to change it”.
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Despite the generally dismal assessments, Rauner said this week that his speech will cover the “many, many important achievements” of the past year, as well as Illinois’ challenges.
Bruce Rauner delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly in the House chambers at the State Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016, in Springfield, Ill.
Gov. Bruce Rauner will call for changes to make government more efficient, from reducing “bureaucracy” in education to changing the way the state buys goods and services.
“In the average state, 40 cents of every property tax dollar goes to fund public education”.
The governor has a tough job to do and I believe that most of his legislative items are do-able, only if Speaker Michael Madigan is willing to sit down and negotiate.
In addition, Rauner has labeled as an achievement the one portion of the state budget he didn’t veto – an elementary and secondary school budget that gives more money to education.
But on Tuesday, Rauner critics were publicly lashing out at him, ahead of the statewide address.
“Thousands of IL families are depending on state leaders to reach a compromise and deliver the services they depend on. And those that are suffering the most are the ones that need it the most”.
“Illinois is a wonderful place”, Rauner said. They ignore the fact that the 2011 rewrite of the workers’ compensation system – those changes sought by the business community, and which were largely to the detriment of men and women injured on the job – is producing the desired result: “lower costs for insurance companies and employers”.
Democrat Mike Smiddy, the 71st District state representative, said his focus was on what the governor didn’t say.
“While Democrats leaders keep their iron grip on the status quo and continue to play their power games, agencies like Lutheran Social Services of IL are forced to make terribly hard decisions that affect senior citizens, the homeless, and people with mental health issues”, he said in a statement. “We’ve got to find ways to work together to solve problems, and we need to start now because Governor Rauner’s first year in office didn’t work for anyone”.
“The governor will be giving his budget presentation to the House and Senate in three weeks”, Weaver said.
The school leaders we spoke with say their districts have been underfunded for years, and that’s the main thing they want state leaders to fix. It would give state workers and retirees a choice in retirement benefits. “In particular, we applaud Governor Rauner’s continued call for a property tax freeze that includes local cost controls so that homeowners and businesses can receive badly needed relief from the second-highest property tax burden in the nation”.
Now that Rauner has laid out his priorities, Republican Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington said, it’s time for rank-and-file lawmakers to put forward legislation that presents options for moving forward with the budget and other issues. Frese said he’s hopeful after seeing Rauner agree to work with Cullerton.
“At no time during the consideration of those four areas did the governor attempt to advance his program to bring down the wages and the standard of living of middle class families”, Madigan said. The governor said today that he’s going to work on that as long as there are no losers. “You can see the pain that’s being caused by this insistence on preconditions to actually negotiating and enacting a state budget”.
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“There’s not a doubt in my mind we can come together to pass a balanced budget alongside reforms”.
