Springfield, IL – In the middle of the night and well into early Wednesday morning, State Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer (R-Murrayville) voted NO on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget. Davidsmeyer says the FY 25 spending plan was crafted behind closed doors by supermajority Democrats and is $2.6 billion more than last year’s enacted budget. The spending plan includes pay raises for politicians and a staggering $1 billion for people in our country illegally. Davidsmeyer expressed his strong opposition.
“This is the largest budget in state history at $53.1 billion,” explained Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer. “The Democrats are raising taxes to continue their spending spree, including $1 billion in tax hikes on businesses and working people. There is also $1 billion in the budget for direct services and health care coverage for people who have come to our country illegally.”
Davidsmeyer, who co-chairs the Commission of Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA), says the Democrats-only budget relies on another $1 billion in budget gimmicks and fund transfers in order to balance. He pointed out that the Democrats used last-minute legislative tricks, broke their own House Rules, and passed tax hikes on the slimmest of margins after three votes.
“These gimmicks hide the true cost of this spending plan going forward,” Davidsmeyer said. “Over the last four years, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and Governor JB Pritzker have grown state expenditures by more than $13 billion, included millions of dollars in pork projects, while raising taxes on small businesses and individuals. In fact, they put together an incentive package for certain large corporations, while requiring the mom & pop businesses to foot the bill.”
Governor Pritzker and House and Senate Democrats have said for years that they were not using ARPA funds from the federal government to increase baseline spending. However, the FY25 budget now includes additional state funds to prop up programs that were created with ARPA funds including money for domestic violence prevention and rental assistance programs.
“While citizens are strapped for cash due to the Biden inflation economy, Illinois Democrats put together another blowout budget that raises taxes and prioritizes spending on taxpayer-funded health insurance and other programs for people who came here illegally,” Davidsmeyer said. “Prioritizing spending on failed sanctuary state policies is wrong, raising taxes during record inflation is wrong, creating new programs during a time of financial hardship for not only our state, but for our citizens and working families is wrong. Quite simply, this budget is wrong. I voted NO.”