EDWARDSVILLE – "Don't let it happen," State Senator Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) writes in an op-ed posted on FoxNews.com, "Federal dollars should not prop up Illinois' failed system."
Plummer criticizes Illinois Senate Democrats who wrote a letter asking for help to bail out the state's pension system in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The freshman Republican called the request "audacious."
He writes:
Americans broadly support federal relief for businesses and workers, but they don’t want to bail out failed business models and corporate corruption. So how would they feel about bailing out the governance failures of America’s most corrupt state?
Welcome to Illinois, America’s shrinking state, home to 1,000 public corruption convictions in the last 20 years. Our acquisitive state politicians want over $40 billion from other states in a brazen attempt to spread the Illinois model beyond our borders.
My Democratic state Senate colleagues garnered national attention with a letter containing this audacious request. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has separately requested billions in federal funds. The message from Illinois’ elected leaders is crystal clear: no humility, no regrets, no acknowledgment of failures, and no strings attached. American Taxpayers – bail us out!
Don’t let it happen. Federal dollars should not prop up Illinois’ failed system.
Sober-minded Illinoisans have long warned that the next economic wind would topple our financial house of cards. However, our leaders had other priorities. Pritzker took to the lectern for his 2020 State of the State address declaring Illinois strong and dismissing fiscal realists as “carnival barkers” and “doomsayers,” receiving thunderous approval from his allies. Now the entire nation knows we’re broke and these same politicians are pleading for a bailout.
The rest is HERE on FoxNews.com
I would settle for the tax dollars that were stolen from Illinois and sent to other states. If Illinois has to fend for herself, give us back our money.
He are a goon.
The Illinois request for $$ to offset the virus impact is as reasonable as anyone’s.
The problem is the pensions. Illinois politicians made big promises to their unions, but now want other states to pay for them.
How sympathetic are the 26 million people who just lost their jobs, i wonder.
I’d be happy if the Illinois government just repaid the money it stole from the FOID program, the Motorcycle Safety Project, and the Gasoline Tax Fund for highway repairs.
If Illinois must file for bankruptcy, it’s the fault of
the vote-buying “giveaway” programs the Democrats used to
win in heavily populated Cook and St Claire counties.
if you want out money back…. ask chicago…..
So this GOP senator who was voted in the support his state and it’s constituents has spread his ass cheeks for Trump and abandoned both his state and constituents. BE PROUD.
I agree with Jason, the irresponsible incompetence of the democrat controlled state legislature shouldn’t be rewarded for their communist policies and obscene unfunded overspending.
The democrat controlled state legislature is like a spoiled child, thinking they can always raise taxes.
The citizens of Illinois already have the heaviest overall tax burden in the country, yet Illinois also has the 2nd heaviest per capita debt. Never reward failure…..
Cook and Lake Counties want their state tax dollars back, too. For every dollar Cook County residents pay in state taxes, they get back 80 cents in services. It’s much worse for the suburbs of Lake County, which only receive back about 1/3 of what the citizens pay.
Texas dad and Joanne must have had the same writing teachers.