With the legislative session winding down, Illinois House Republican leaders are sounding the alarm over what they say is a lack of urgency and reform in Springfield. House GOP Leader Tony McCombie questioned the absence of discussion on structural reforms, especially with a proposed state budget topping a historic $55.2 billion, nearly $2 billion more than last year. Deputy Leader Norine Hammond highlighted a sharp increase in state spending since 2019 and noted reports of improper Medicaid reimbursements that will require Illinois to pay back federal funds. Meanwhile, Deputy Leader Ryan Spain criticized last-minute lawmaking and blamed majority Democrats for rising energy costs and a projected budget deficit.
McCombie said, “We’re looking at the largest budget proposal in Illinois history with no action whatsoever on the real problems that we have here in Illinois. Structural reform is the only path forward for us to grow our state. There are several things that are approaching this end of the year that we really need to be talking about to do just that, grow our state, reform our state.
The minority leader went on to say, “Illinois should be thriving, a thriving state and one of the top in the nation. We’ve got the third largest city. We’ve got top tier agriculture and industry. We have the second largest rail system. We have 32 Fortune 500 companies. Not too long ago, we had 36. You saw under Pritzker, after taking office, you saw Boeing, Caterpillar, Tyson Foods, and Citadel walk out of this state due to leadership.”
Ryan Spain explained, “The Democrats have been telling the rate payers of Illinois that your energy bills are going to increase, and it’s the fault of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) or PJM Interconnection through a capacity auction that they have every year. That’s a great comfort to our constituents, right? As they see these price spikes and shocks on their summer utility bills, Democrats want to insert language into their bills that say, no, it’s someone else’s fault and not ours.”
