Metro East Sun

A bewildered former Illinois House candidate Mike Babcock wonders how much more lawmakers in Springfield think Illinois residents can shoulder.

“It’s hard to see how they would put forth this budget when we already have a pension shortfall of $170 billion and this state has now gone three months where revenues have been short by millions because of the virus,” Babcock told the Metro East Sun of the state’s newly passed $42 billion spending plan. “Where is all this revenue supposed to come from?”

Babcock fumes that all of the debt and spending doesn’t end there, and arguably becomes even more difficult to defend.

A provision in the budget bill that Democrats banded together to pass during a recent four-day special session stands to make Illinois the first state in the country to provide Medicaid to undocumented immigrants. As of July 1, 2021, undocumented immigrants over the age of 65 with incomes of $12,670 or less would be eligible to receive Medicaid benefits.

“I don’t think our forefathers ever in their wildest imagination could have pictured people just coming to this country to get free things,” Babcock added.

Babcock said he’s come to believe Democrats justify much of it in their own minds by resorting to the kind of fuzzy math Springfield is notorious for.

“I don’t understand their math, and unfortunately Democrats in power don’t understand math at all,” he said. “Gov. (J.B.) Pritzker talks about his progressive income tax fixing all of our problems, but there’s no way that can happen.”

Babcock said it’s all brought him to just one conclusion.  

“We need a new governor and a balanced House and Senate to give the kind of change in government that this state really needs,” he said. “Our state is suffering and being destroyed by this one-party rule.”