Springfield, IL… State Representative Tom Weber (R- Fox Lake) issued the following statement on the passage of the FY22 Budget:
“This past year was incredibly difficult and unlike any Illinois had seen in recent memory. Yet, Illinois was in a surprisingly fortuitous budget position. A position from which we could have done a lot of good. Unfortunately, the budget presented at the 11th hour and debated on for only 15 minutes was more of the same Illinois budgeting practices that had left Illinois in such a dire position before the pandemic.
What we saw tonight is a huge disappointment for many reasons. Despite having $8 billion in new federal funds at our disposal, it did nothing to address the $5 billion dollar hole facing our depleted unemployment insurance fund. Additionally, the bill includes $1 billion dollars in federal coronavirus relief funds paid for by all taxpayers, but divvied up entirely to Democrat capital projects.
The budget importantly does not cut the Invest in Kids Act, the Blue Collar Jobs Act, Biodiesel incentives, and other important tax credit programs that the Governor originally identified for the cutting block and wrongly decried as ‘corporate loopholes’. But it does raise taxes on small businesses to pay for further discretionary spending in a year where every other public and private entity and family has been pinching pennies.
The people of my district deserve better than a last minute budget that no ones read and Illinois needs a truly balanced budget with no new tax increases.”