Metro East Sun

With the state poised for an estimated $7.5 billion windfall as part of its allotment from the federal stimulus plan signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, Illinois Sen. Steve McClure (R-Jacksonville) is as anxious as anyone to see if Democrats have learned anything from their mistakes.

“It’s certainly going to be a big benefit to the state of Illinois as far as funds,” McClure told Fox 2 Now. “But, you know, the question for us is what our state now does with those funds? Do we go back into the same old ways? Or do we try to use this to say, ‘Okay, we’ve caught a break here from the federal government. And so maybe we’re going to try to get us on the right path.'”

McClure argues the stakes couldn’t be higher given the state’s current struggles and Springfield’s history of squandering money.

“What happens now is going to affect us five or 10 years from now,” said McClure.

Before Biden signed off on his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, there were already rumblings about Democrats thinking of moving to renew their push for the progressive tax plan that voters rejected in November as a way of paying down some of the state’s massive pension debt.

New House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch seems convinced that if Democrats do a better job of explaining what the added tax revenues would be used for, that could make all the difference.

 “People want to know what you’re going to do with the money,” he said during a recent speech at the Economic Club of Chicago. “I certainly think tying that new revenue to pensions would be a winner.”