SE Illinois News

118th District State Rep. Patrick Windhorst (R-Metropolis) said that Gov. Pritzker should work with the General Assembly to produce a truly balanced budget.

What the governor presented on his budget address would eliminate “economic reforms and businesses incentives that spur economic growth,” Windhorst said.

“Economic growth is key to reversing our state’s declining population and solving our long-term fiscal challenges.”

Removing these programs means the governor is “going back on his words and the agreement he made at the FY20 budget,” Windhorst explained.

He continued that the governor’s budget relies on a $900 million increase in taxes on small businesses, which “Governor Pritzker may call these incentives for economic growth ‘loopholes,’ but in reality, he is proposing a massive tax hike on small businesses when they can least afford it.”

The FY 22 budget, according to Windhorst, relies on federal government money that may or may not come.

“That is the tactic used to pass last year’s budget and call it, ‘balanced,’” he said in a statement he released following Pritzker’s Budget Address.

Windhorst echoed the rest of the Republicans' demand stating that “the Constitution calls on the governor to present a truly balanced budget.”

He also said that this year’s budget address was the most partisan he heard from the governor to date.