SE Illinois News

Illinois state Rep. Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) fears for the state’s future if lawmakers in Springfield insist on maintaining their current path.

“The day is going to come when we’re in recession, and that will bring Illinois to its knees if we haven’t changed course by then,” Bailey told the SE Illinois News. “We’re taxing people out of this state with the way we’re doing things in Springfield.”

One instance Bailey points to as an example of the dysfunction in state government is the way home values across Illinois over the last decade have lost more than a fifth of their value while property taxes have soared by 9 percent after adjusting for inflation. On top of that, Illinois Policy Institute reports that the drop in home values across the state is 300 percent worse than the national average.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

“[Gov. J.B.] Pritzker and the Democrats are crippling Illinois, and I believe in the next three years we’ll be able to see all the detriments of this system of reckless spending and taxation,” Bailey said. “We’ve got to start dealing with what we know we’ve got to do, which is deal with this fragile economy and these runaway taxes.”

Total population across the state is down over each of the last five years, with many arguing that part of the problem stems from lawmakers' inability to adequately reduce property tax levies after the recession, leaving a shrinking tax base to grapple with the effects of a rising tax burden.

“We’ve got to get things turned around and we’ve got to do it fast,” Bailey said. “None of this is sustainable or in the best interest of the state.”