Statement from State Rep. Adam Niemerg on the Governor's State of the State

[February 03, 2022] 

State Representative Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich) is issuing the following statement on the Governor’s State of the State Address.

“In a not-so-subtle campaign ploy, Governor Pritzker is dangling property tax, gas tax and grocery tax relief for working families. While it is nice to see the Governor finally admit that lower taxes benefit working people, the truth is his actions are disingenuous. The money for his one-time tax relief benefits comes from federal funds propping up the Illinois budget despite his protests to the contrary.

What is needed is permanent, structural reforms to get our budget under control. The financial mess facing our state is a direct result of the gamesmanship we see all too often. Instead of addressing the long-term financial health of our state, we use one-time sources of revenues to play games and do nothing to improve the financial health of the state.

Once again, the Governor is proposing a budget with record breaking spending. If the Governor really wanted to help working families in Illinois, he would find ways to reduce spending and couple those reductions with meaningful, permanent tax relief.

Governor Pritzker seems to be living in an alternative universe. People concerned about the future of the state are in no way trying to suggest Illinois is a bad place to live. Illinois is a great state but unfortunately leaders like JB Pritzker are failing this great state miserably. Illinois has the third highest outmigration rate in the nation not because people are tired of deep-dish pizza but because of the failure of leaders like JB Pritzker who won’t even acknowledge what simple math and simple statistics plainly show.

So much for science.

Statistics don’t lie but politicians do. Not only is Gov. Pritzker lying to us, he also is lying to himself. The Governor may try to paint a rosy picture of our state but the thousands and thousands of people leaving our state tell a much different story. People are leaving Illinois in droves to escape Pritzker’s incompetence and poor leadership. Period.

Finally, the Governor failed to give Illinois residents any assurances that his COVID-19 mandates on schools would be lifted any time soon. It is time for our state to return normal. Governor Pritzker’s new normal is an Orwellian nightmare that must come to an end once and for all.

Instead, all we are going to get is more of the same. More mandates. More spending. More residents leaving our state. Illinois citizens deserve better.”

[Illinois Newswire]