This week the Illinois General Assembly began taking key votes on our state's budget.
After our Republican Governor, introduced a budget that made billions of dollars in draconian cuts and offered no new forms of revenue the Democratic Speaker introduced his own budget that while protecting the spending, it was not balanced, and it lacked new forms of revenue.
While most of my Democratic colleagues supported this plan, I voted NO!
I took this stand because I refuse to support a budget without adequate revenue.
I believe that a budget is a moral document. Morals must be supported by conviction. Unless we have the conviction to pass revenue necessary to support spending on essential programs that benefit millions of Illinois families, this year’s budget remains an immoral and unconstitutional document.
Illinois' state budget is about $35B; and our total economy is estimated at $700B. That means a nickel for every dollar spent in the state of Illinois goes towards states spending.
Illinois Republicans that think we haven't cut discretionary spending in, those folks haven't been listening.
They claim that businesses are leaving Illinois, but they can never show me more than one or two businesses that were leaving for other reasons.
If they think this is about raising taxes on the poor and middle class you're exactly right. It's about having the poor and middle class pay more so rich people don't have to.
If they think we've been spending beyond our means in Illinois, then they are obviously someone of means who doesn't want to shoulder their fair share of the burden of meeting the just demands of our people.
I am proud of taking this tough stand for middle class families!
About Mike Noland
Mike is an Illinois State Senator, first elected in 2006. He has been one of the most progressive members of the Senate and is exploring a run for Congress in IL-8 as a populist Democrat focused on economic recovery, ethics reform, and fighting for universal health care. You can follow him on Twitter @noland4congress and Facebook at facebook.com/nolandforcongress.