A candidate for governor says Illinois needs an “austerity budget” for the next five years in order to get spending under control and bring its tax rates down.
Republican Representative Jeanne Ives says that while the income tax increase enacted last summer probably can’t be rolled back immediately, she would hope to reduce it after a year, once some of the state’s bill backlog is paid down.
But she says there also has to be major changes to pensions, Medicaid spending, and the way local school districts spend the money they get from the state. Ives had a meet-and-greet event in Springfield Thursday.