As Illinois Governor I would work towards making a couple of million people mad at me while making the rest happy with my efforts. Two of the changes I would push involve how the state operates its finances. Elected officials would be the first to protest them.

            First on my agenda would be to find the niche a retiring Supreme Court Judge told me could be used to tax Illinois pensions. If such a niche was found to be unconstitutional I would lead an effort to amend it. Currently over 600,000 people get a monthly pension check. Many are for $100,000 per year with some recipients receiving two or three pension checks. My change would allow only one plan distribution and add any a person cannot receive a pension check while working as a consultant with any state project or department. That is over $2.5 Billion that would be subject to being taxed each month. A large portion of those taxes goes to people living out of Illinois and thus being spent elsewhere. The money would go solely to help pay down the pension deficits.

            Another change would be to eliminate the slush fund each Representative and Senator is given in each session to spend within their district. Imagine each Senator and Representative getting over $100,000 to spend in their district. Some probably goes to a worthy project but we all know what happens when a politician is given a big chunk of money to spend. How much of that $177 million goes to a needed project and how much goes to curry favor from someone or a group.  An ethical politician wouldn’t waste money and return the unspent funds at the end of the term. The idea was the distribution would be the same for each person in either party to spend in their district as they know best. Great idea but reality says it is just a legal tax payer funded slush fund. Local projects should be done with local funds.

            These easy changes would help fix the state’s finances and reduce the state Debt!