Michele Hunter on the Issues
Jobs and the Economy
We need to have a pro-growth agenda in Illinois that reduces taxes and encourages businesses to set up shop here instead of fleeing to other states where they have a pro-business stature.
Public Safety
We need to repeal HB3653, the so-called Safe-T Act. In fact, this bill has made us less safe, and it is designed to be easy on criminals. We cannot tie the hands of law enforcement and pretend that somehow, we will be safer. HB3653 needs to be repealed.
The State Budget
By every measurement, the state budget is a shambles. The Governor points to a couple of up-ticks from Moody’s Investment advisories but we all know that these were temporary and primarily attributed to the covid relief dollars that were given to Illinois. We need to take a hard look at what we are spending tax dollars on and we need to move to a zero-based budgeting system that requires all expenditures to be justified.
Education
The pandemic response taught us many things about how parents need to have a say in their children’s education. On the education front, we learned about the power of the teacher’s union and many parents who pulled their children out of public schools are learning about school vouchers and school choice. The number one responsibility of teachers is to educate our children in areas of science, math, language arts, and social studies, and based on test scores the schools are failing. The issue is not teachers’ salaries but rather the product. We need to work together to solve this problem because our state is failing our children.
Emergency Powers
The legislature needs to take up the issue of ‘emergency powers”, such as those exercised by the Governor during the Pandemic. Illinois should not brush this issue under the rug because the government’s handling of the situation was met with mistrust. The people of Illinois want to know that next time the legislature will not cede its role to any Governor.
