Pritzker Responds to “Energized” Rauner Leading State To Junk Status

Chicago, IL — As we enter day 725 without a budget, the bill backlog tops $15 billion and the state is about to be downgraded to junk status, Bruce Rauner told the Chicago Sun-Times that he’s “energized” and is “happy” about his hard work leading our state to financial ruin. In response, JB Pritzker released the following statement:

“The fact that Bruce Rauner can talk about his own happiness as our economy spirals down the drain and Illinois stumbles towards junk status is appalling,” said JB Pritzker. “Rauner’s comments are an absurd insult to the millions of families struggling under his failed leadership. This is confirmation of what we’ve known all along: Bruce Rauner manufactured this crisis to force his agenda on our state and he does not care how many Illinoisans pay the price.”

The State Journal-Register sums up Bruce Rauner’s devastating comments:

State Journal-Register: Bernard Schoenburg: Rauner talks of being happy, energized during impasse

By Bernard Schoenburg

In the midst of a two-year budget impasse, Gov. Bruce Rauner has again said how happy he is every morning.

Republican Rauner told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed that when he’s out and about, and people who identify themselves as Democrats tell him to stay the course, “it’s really wonderful.”

“That energizes me, and I know it sounds strange, but my wife tells me she hasn’t seen me this happy in 20 years,” Rauner continued. “I feel totally honored and humbled to get the opportunity to improve the future of 13 million people.”

He went on to tell a story about learning the value of persistence by taking hours to catch a bullfrog at his grandfather’s farm in Wisconsin.

Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, said it’s hard to be “pitching compromise and bipartisanship on the one hand,” which Rauner claimed to be doing when asking for unity in the special session, “and then doing attacks ads and mail pieces” at the same time.

Being in campaign mode, Redfield said, “makes the normal give-and-take of government very difficult. … If you want it all (governmentally) and you want to get maximum partisan advantage, that really almost precludes doing what you … want to accomplish.”

Meanwhile, one obvious source of Democratic messages — including anti-Rauner ads — is the campaign of J.B. Pritzker of Chicago, who is worth more than $3 billion and, like Rauner, is advertising early. He’s one of several candidates in the March Democratic primary for governor.

“What’s happening in Springfield is offensive to our values and to who we are as a state, and Bruce Rauner blames everyone but himself,” Pritzker says in one ad. The budget impasse, he adds, is “creating real damage to people,” with “thousands of women and children seeking refuge from violence … finding shelters either closed or with less availability than they once had. … Home care for seniors is in jeopardy. … And with Donald Tump in the White House, now, more than ever, we need leadership in our state that’s committed to fighting for the people of Illinois.”

Read the full story HERE.

 

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