Republican St. Sen. Brian Stewart says lawmakers didn’t really need the update Gov. Pritzker gave yesterday. Stewart says they already see every day the businesses that are closed and the jobs that are lost. He says the governor continues to govern through executive order with little to no input from legislators. Stewart says with $1 billion in extra taxes on business, it’s no wonder businesses continue to leave Illinois and take jobs with them. And Stewart says lawmakers want to know why money is being diverted from infrastructure projects.
St. Rep. Tom Demmer says Gov. Pritzker is wrongly identifying some tax credit programs as tax loopholes.
Demmer says don’t blame the pandemic for the state’s budget troubles. The Dixon Republican says the state’s financial challenges go back many years. He says Pritzker asked department heads and agency directors for cuts two years in a row, but those never made it into the budget and weren’t even made public.