Rep. Murphy Responds to Gov's Blatantly Partisan Budget Proposal

SPRINGFIELD – State Representative Mike Murphy (R-Springfield) issued the following statement in response to Governor Pritzker’s fiscal year 2022 budget proposal:

“The budget proposal the Governor offered today dropped any notion that he still believes in working in a bipartisan manner,” said Murphy. “Since May of 2019, I have carried around a document listing several of the pro-job creation, pro-small business reforms we agreed to with him at the time. These reforms are the very reason state revenue is better than expected today, and many businesses have been able to survive the Governor’s COVID-19 shutdowns. Right now, his administration is using one of those reforms, the Data Center Tax Incentive, to convince the New York Stock Exchange to expand a data-hub in Illinois. It is the height of hypocrisy that he would then propose a budget containing nearly $1 billion dollars in tax increases on job creators by wiping away all the other vital bipartisan reforms that are desperately needed to keep more businesses from closing their doors for good.

“The 2019 reforms, like the elimination of the cap on the Retailer’s Discount – which is hugely important to our struggling retail industry right now – and the Blue Collar Jobs Act brought jobs to the state of Illinois. Jobs and investments that produced paychecks, payroll taxes and state revenue. Instead of a budget that adds another $1.6 billion to our deficit on top of the $4.7 billion unpaid bill backlog and $4.3 billion in short-term debt, we should be looking to get our economy going through tools that help job creators invest and will lead to more jobs and revenue. The best stimulus for our state and its people are steady, good-paying jobs, not more taxes that cripple struggling job creators.”