Illinois Democrats: Our State is Failing. And the Buck Stops with You.

You don’t need to be from Illinois to have heard of its problems. Home to the nation’s most underfunded pension plan and a rich history of corrupt politicians, our state is rarely in the news for anything positive. The sources of our state’s problems are diverse, but one thing is certain: business as usual won’t cut it.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the state’s Democrats have done for years. Our state has been turned into a combination of the worst things in politics: a bloated, one party dominated bureaucracy that’s incapable of even slight reform. When Republican Governor Rauner was inaugurated, many hoped things would change. Instead, the Democrats doubled down, refusing to hear any sort of compromise or reduction of spending. Our state has gone five months without a budget. And these woes will only get worse. From 2013 to 2014, Illinois lost over 94,000 residents to other states. This is the worst possible scenario. Illinois’ finances are already a mess, and bleeding valuable residents to other states creates a compounding loss that will be detrimental to our finances. Our credit rating is already the worst in the nation, how much more shame must our constituents suffer?

We need to be honest with ourselves.

This is going to be tough. Some difficult choices lie ahead, and some programs that make a genuine difference will have to be cut. But at the end of the day, we’re no different than a company or a family going through financial difficulties: we have to tighten our belt. This means reducing the programs we support to only the ones with the greatest returns. It means realizing that all the programs for youth in the world don’t mean a difference if their school doesn’t have money. Thanks to botched formulas, pandering to special interests, and low financing, Illinois’ school system is the most unfair in the nation. This is the epitome of what must be done in Illinois: an aggressive focus on our core programs.

We need to invest in technology, and reduce our government drastically.

The Illinois Department of Motor vehicles is a mess. In fact, all of Jesse White’s departments that he oversees as Secretary of State are bloated bureaucracies that fail to serve their constituents properly. The fact that Jesse White has been in office since 1999 says a lot about what is wrong with this state. He has advocated relentlessly for more regulation and harsh government oversight of activities the government has no business being involved in. It’s a miracle he isn’t running again.

The Illinois government needs to be gutted. An aggressive task force must be established with the sole purpose of replacing every single government process possible with a technology solution. We must seek out the advice and help of our nations leading tech companies to introduce an online system, integrated amongst all state websites. We should strive to drastically reduce the amount of visits to our DMVs. Then, we should downsize them and close the ones that are frivolous. The State of Illinois should aspire to be the most technologically innovative state in the nation.

It means realizing that all the programs for youth in the world don’t mean a difference if their school doesn’t have money.

Every department must be looked at hard, and agencies that serve little purpose should be cut or merged. The divisions of our state should be as complicated as that of a major company. Expenditures that have long been commonplace must be reexamined for their worthiness.

The Democrats have held the reins during the worst of this mess, now they need to show they are sensible enough to fix it. They don’t seem to realize that by persisting in their refusals to cut anything, they are enabling their own demise. Eventually, people will grow so sick of the status quo they’ll vote for anyone but the people in office. Our state is on the verge of a brutal fiscal collapse. There’s been national discussion lately about enacting a new law to allow Puerto Rico to file for bankruptcy. Many Republicans are nervous about endorsing this, worried it will lead to a way for Illinois to file as well. If being compared to Puerto Rico doesn’t terrify you, I don’t know what will.