Letter: Quit With the Games

As a freshman in Springfield I had always heard from afar about the games played with our tax dollars, appalled at the lack progress towards meaningful reforms to change things. Now I’m seeing it up close, and I’m choosing not to participate.

For those loosely paying attention, the Illinois House Speaker waited until May, but in recent weeks has unleashed a flurry of proposals aimed squarely at the Governor’s attempts to turn around Illinois. The turnaround agenda is a comprehensive effort to fundamentally change the way Illinois operates. It was meant to begin a discussion, find consensus, and ultimately bring an agreed upon agenda.

Instead, the Illinois House has been inundated with hasty piecemeal votes and debates, each given their own day or episode in a television show type atmosphere. The purpose is to bust apart the proposals and take them off the table while garnering ammo for the next election.

House Republicans have chosen to vote “present” as a protest to the mockery that is being made of the process. We’ve taken this stance with spending bills too where the same thing has been happening. Piecemeal spending bills, while aimed at preserving funding for worthy purposes, are being put up for a vote without the context of a comprehensive budget or even an agreed upon state revenue number.

I ran to replace retiring Representative Kosel to continue her work to fight the status quo. Governor Rauner won because the people of Illinois are tired of the status quo. What we’re seeing in the Illinois House is very much that, and hopefully my colleagues in the House soon recognize that the people of Illinois are tired of it.

Margo McDermed

State Representative 37th district