Before a joint session of the Illinois
General Assembly, Governor Pat Quinn delivered his State of the State speech. Quinn
outlined his priorities for the 2013 session, including pension reform,
increasing Illinois’ minimum wage, and an assault weapons ban. State Rep. Barbara Wheeler (R-Crystal Lake)
released this statement following the governor’s remarks on pensions:
“While I am pleased that the governor
sees the reality of our broken fiscal house, we must now make the bold and
courageous decisions that are needed to save us from financial collapse. Our pension system has over $100 billion in
unfunded liabilities, we have nearly $9 billion in unpaid bills, and the
unwanted income tax increase is set to expire in 2015. We are at the brink of our own fiscal
cliff. We must act now; the people of
Illinois cannot afford additional hardships in this slow moving economy.”
Representative Wheeler also made this
statement on raising the minimum wage:
“We are in a stagnant economy and
leaders are proposing increasing the State’s minimum wage to $10 an hour. How
are employers and small businesses supposed to pay for this? The State increased business taxes to 9.3% two
years ago, didn’t go far enough in workers’ compensation reform, and now we are
wanting to squeeze more out of the driving force of our economy?
We need to look for ways to save
employers and small businesses money before we look to increase the minimum
wage."
No comments:
Post a Comment