Republican state Rep. Dan Ugaste (Geneva) laments that for every step forward the state’s new $40 billion spending plan takes, it remains stuck in neutral when it comes to aiding already overburdened taxpayers.
“My biggest concern is we’re doing nothing to help taxpayers,” Ugaste told the Kane County Reporter. “We need to be addressing our pension system, but that was never a word we discussed. I’m not looking to take away anyone’s pension that they’ve already earned, but the reality is what we’re doing is unsustainable. Every other state has workers in some kind of 401 plan and I can’t understand why we can’t be doing the same thing.”
Slated to go into effect with the start of the new budget year on July 1, the new plan that easily passed both chambers by better than a 2-1 margin increases spending for education and social services and borrows more to pay down all the debt already incurred.
Illinois state Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva)
| repugaste.com
“Overall, you would have to say this was a bad week when you consider none of the spending was done in a way that anyone in my party would have liked,” Ugaste said, pointing to the $45 billion public works construction plan the Senate signed off on to pay for roads, bridges and airport upgrades as a prime example.
“To keep us as a transportation hub, that’s something the state greatly needs,” he said. "But we wanted to see savings on the general revenue side to pay for the capital bill. In the end, we’re left to make the best out of a bad situation, and at least I can tell myself that this budget doesn’t appear to be terribly out of whack.”
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