Metro East Sun

Republican candidate Jason Plummer is dismayed at the talk of taxpayers having to fund the Barrack Obama Presidential Center.

"This Obama Center pork project was shoe-horned into a 900-page budget bill without ever seeing the light of day, just like much of the president’s own signature Affordable Care Act," Plummer told Metro East Sun. "No taxpayer should have to foot the bill for this project, but that has never stopped Chicago politicians from recklessly spending their money in the past."

As a strong believer in accountability and responsibility in government, Plummer is against the idea of the state funding this project because it is unnecessary.

| Courtesy of Jason Plummer

"Spending money we don’t have on a non-essential project, and on the heels of a two-year budget stalemate, is obscene," Plummer said. "Social service providers, schools, businesses, and many others around Illinois are struggling to get the state to pay its bills. Taxpayers are completely tapped out and no one raises an eyebrow when the people are repeatedly lied to and badly needed public money is siphoned off to some blatantly political, left-wing vanity project."

The worst part about the project is that it has not been accurately represented by lawmakers, Plummer said.

"The whole project was deceptive from the onset," Plummer said. "This is not a presidential library, as it was originally sold. The presidential papers won’t be housed there, it will not be run by the federal government, and it obviously isn’t being 100 percent privately funded. No wonder we're a national laughingstock and people are fleeing in droves."

Plummer is running against Democrat Brian Stout for the 54th District Senate seat and believes the project should be paid for with private funds.

"If it can’t be built with private funds, it shouldn’t be built at all,” he said. “Taxpayers should not be on the hook for a center that will return none of their investment.”