From Americans For Prosperity, Illinois…
Chicago, Illinois – The Illinois chapter of the grassroots free-market group Americans for Prosperity (AFP-IL) and it’s over 30,000 statewide members express great disappointment in Governor Quinn’s failure to VETO the states unbalanced budget.
“Over the last several weeks Americans for Prosperity and its members have written several hundreds of letters requesting the governor to Veto the budget forcing lawmakers to do their job. “Today, Governor Quinn had a chance to do just that. Unfortunately, Governor Quinn failed to do his job” said state director Joe Calomino.
Once again, Governor Quinn has proven that he lacks the courage to make the necessary spending reductions and reforms needed to bring spending in line with revenues. It is clear, through his lack of meaningful action, that Governor Quinn is buying time with the hope that he can once again push his tax increase after the election.
The Governor signed the FY11 budget into law today, using his veto power to reduce spending by less than one half of one percent. The Governor used his veto pen on HB 859, the FY11 budget, to reduce appropriations by just $155 million. He is promising to eventually cut appropriations to $1.4 billion below the FY10 appropriated level.
“Governor Quinn’s track record of making promises to cut spending and develop reforms is less than stellar. Last year Governor Quinn promised to cut $1 billion from state spending, going as far as to provide a list of cuts that were going to be made. The vast majority of those budget reductions never happened. In fact, Governor Quinn ended up overspending by $2 billion and increased our backlog of bills from $4 billion to $6 billion” Calomino said.
The General Assembly and now Governor Quinn’s decision to borrow against our future, in-lieu of making the tough choices, like where to cut costs and how to rein in spending, is akin to paying off a Master Card bill by charging it to a Visa Card.
“The taxpayers of Illinois deserve better. Hopefully, they will take action in November and elect officials that have the courage and fortitude to make our great state prosperous once again” said Calomino.
Joe Calomno
State Director
Americans for Prosperity, Illinois