Spending cuts, pension reform and education make up balanced plan

Posted 2/21/18

Spending cuts, pension reform, and prioritizing education are a few items that make up the balanced budget plan presented to the General Assembly on Feb. 14 during the annual Budget Address.

Also during the week, the tragic shooting death of a Chicago Police Department (CPD) commander and the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, accompanied calls from some lawmakers to ban “bump stock” attachments on guns.

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Spending cuts, pension reform and education make up balanced plan

Posted

SPRINGFIELD – Spending cuts, pension reform, and prioritizing education are a few items that make up the balanced budget plan presented to the General Assembly on Feb. 14 during the annual Budget Address.
Also during the week, the tragic shooting death of a Chicago Police Department (CPD) commander and the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, accompanied calls from some lawmakers to ban “bump stock” attachments on guns. Gov. Rauner ordered flags to be lowered in remembrance of Commander Paul Bauer, the 31-year CPD veteran who was killed outside the Thompson Center on Feb. 13. These crimes are horrific.
Annual budget address
Presented to a joint session of legislators Feb. 14, the annual Budget Address outlines a starting point for budget negotiations for Fiscal Year 2019.
Lawmakers must reject the tax-and-spend fiscal policies of past years and pass a budget that balances spending and revenue, Efforts to pass a balanced budget have routinely been met with a lack of cooperation. Our citizens deserve better from their elected officials. This budget rejects the status quo of “tax and spend.” It prioritizes education, public safety, transportation and essential human services, and provides the kind of structural changes that will get Illinois on the road to fiscal health.

The plan continues to increase funding for Illinois K-12 schools, which is a cause the Governor has pushed every year: $350 million for the new school funding formula. The budget framework also dedicates resources to combat crime and the opioid crisis, directs $50 million for infrastructure improvements at the Quincy Veterans Home, and provides assistance for some of Illinois’ most vulnerable residents, while implementing reforms that would ease the financial burden on taxpayers.
Though the Governor’s budget proposal is just the first step on the road to a Fiscal Year 2019 budget, it is a good working foundation for the General Assembly. Lawmakers can now begin what we hope is a bipartisan process of negotiating and advancing a budget that will help stimulate the economy, grow jobs and continue providing record funding for education.
‘Bump stock’ and concealed carry legislation
Several lawmakers are sponsoring legislation that would make it illegal in the state of Illinois to sell, purchase or possess bump stocks—an attachment for a semiautomatic rifle that allows it to fire faster, operating similarly to a fully automatic rifle. The sale and use of bump stocks have recently come under scrutiny after several of the attachments were found at the scene of the national tragedy in Las Vegas last October, which resulted in more than 50 fatalities and hundreds injured.
Sponsors of Senate Bill 2247 say the bill gives consideration to both the safety of the public and the interests of gun owners. By targeting bump stocks, supporters say the legislation does not limit gun owners, whose rights to common lawful trigger modifications would not be affected.  Senate Bill 2247 awaits a public hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Also pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee is legislation introduced by a suburban lawmaker that will further restrict the places that persons with legal Concealed Carry permits can carry their weapons.  Senate Bill 2231 adds any building, real property, or parking area under the control of a church, synagogue, temple, mosque, or other place of worship to the places where concealed carry of a firearm is prohibited. I do not support further restriction of places where legal Concealed Carry permits are allowed.
Police commander
Flags were lowered to half-staff at all state buildings from sunrise Feb. 15 until sunset Feb. 17, in honor and remembrance of CPD Commander Paul Bauer.
Commander Bauer was shot and killed Feb. 13 while confronting an armed suspect outside the James R. Thompson Center, a state government office building in downtown Chicago.  Commander Bauer was a 31-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department.