The day is finally here and Illinois is still without a balanced budget.
Yesterday marked the end of the General Assembly’s spring session and yet another deadline in which state lawmakers failed to meet.
With frustrations running high at the State Capitol, some local politicians say enough is enough, and that it’s time to end the budget impasse.
As local State Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer puts it, it’s time to “end the political theater and pass a budget.”
“We’ve gone two, going on three years without a budget, and it’s time to quit playing games and actually get back to what we need to be doing. Over the past six months, the majority party has passed nearly one billion dollars in new spending. We all realize that we’re already broke, so how are we going to fund the additional programs that they’re trying to create?” asks Davidsmeyer.
Davidsmeyer says the recent Democratic spending bills are taking money away from critical state services. He reiterates the message he’s been sending seemingly for over a year: it’s time to act as adults and negotiate a legitimate budget.
“That just takes away funding from our education, from state universities, from social services, and these are things that they claim to care about. So right now, I’m renewing my call to say, ‘it’s time to be adults, lets pull up our big boy pants, lets sit down at the table and let’s negotiate a real budget,” Davidsmeyer says.
Though yesterday marked the end of the spring session, House Speaker Michael Madigan indicated that the House would continue working until the end of June on a spending-and-revenue plan.