By Blake Schnitker on February 10
WLDS-WEAI News spoke with Representative Davidsmeyer, who shares his thoughts on Rauner’s video and Speaker Madigan’s potential motives.
“I think that, initially, the Attorney General’s filing was to put pressure on the General Assembly to get a budget, and I think this deadline by Speaker Madigan is probably similar, it just extends the deadline to June 30. I think the ultimate goal is to force a tax increase, the tough thing is, we’ve seen budgets that have been anywhere from six billion to eight billion dollars out of whack, and I think this is an effort to get everybody to support a budget that’s still out of whack,” says Davidsmeyer.
Davidsmeyer says it’s about working with the other side of the aisle to come up with the right answer.
“I’ve said all along, we don’t need a Republican answer, we don’t need a Democrat answer, we need an answer. The reality about the Democrats version of the bill is it isn’t an answer, it just kicks the can. Our bill is an actual answer to the issue of state employees not getting paid. If the Democrats were willing to amend their bill to look like ours, I don’t think the governor would veto it. But it’s not about Republicans or Avery Bourne and myself getting credit for it, it’s about passing the right bill,” explains Davidsmeyer.