McHenry Times

Illinois state Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) believes that Gov. J.B. Pritzker devoted too much of his State of the State address last week in Springfield taking credit where it was not necessarily deserved.

“He talked about how the state is doing better and getting stronger, but the better revenues can be attributed to a strong national economy,” Ugaste told the Kane County Reporter. “We still should be doing much better than we are. The governor talked about doing little things that make a difference, but he’s not doing nearly enough of those things.”

Ugaste suggests that a more accurate view of the state of the state comes from a recent report by the Illinois Department of Employment Security in conjunction with the Bureau of Labor Statistics that found that Illinois' job creation lagged far behind the national average in 2019. The Illinois Policy Institute notes that last year marked the state's slowest job growth in the first year of any governor's elected term since the start of Rod Blagojevich's second term in 2007.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

“Workers compensation, saving, stopping the over-regulations and the funding of unfunded mandates that put more property tax pressures on people, those are all things we should be doing,” Ugaste said. “And we still have a huge structural deficit we haven’t even begun to address.”

Ugaste says he was happy to see Pritzker dedicate some time in his speech to ethics reforms, which he believes to be of paramount importance.

“If we don’t get that, we will continue this downward spiral that includes losing population, money and ethics problems,” he said. “People won’t be looking to come here to do business or to relocate here as a place to live.”