McLean County Times

State Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Champaign) claims the numbers simply don’t add up in the state’s recently approved $42.3 billion budget.

“The final version was filed about 5 minutes before the House began voting on it,” Chapin said in a video posted to YouTube.  "We never got a full rack up." 

“There’s over a billion dollars in Democratic pork projects in this budget,” he said. "Our side represents four million people in this state. Three-thousand-page bill and there's four million people that aren't included in that billion dollars."

Rose said the Democrats took care of their own. “You’ve got your new districts, you took care of your new districts and now you’ve got your billion dollars for the new districts.”

Chapin and other Republican lawmakers fear the money grab may not end there, with the veteran senator warning that even though the state’s revenue estimates have soared by more than $8 billion compared to last fiscal year, another tax increase may still not be out of the question.

In addition to the $8 billion in added revenues, Chapin also points to the more than $8 billion headed to the state as part of President Joe Biden’s plan to jumpstart the economy.

"And yet, Gov. Pritzker and his Democrat Party colleagues still say they don't have enough money," he told the Chambana Sun "They're looking each of you in the eye every day and they're looking at the people of Illinois in the eye every day and they're saying, 'we don't have enough money.' Really?" the senator said. "These guys have plenty of money. The question that needs to be asked of Gov. Pritzker is 'where does it end?' When is enough enough?"

Democrats insist there is a $1.3 billion hole in the budget, a big difference from the $792 million in additional base revenue for fiscal year 2022 Republicans have projected.