The Illinois Agriculture Legislative Roundtable was held yesterday at Schuler Farms east of Lexington. Both Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker attended the event, spoke and answered questions.
After speaking and participating in a Q & A on stage in a metal building, Bailey was escorted outside to the media tent where he took more questions.
In response to a question regarding whether or not it was important to reshape the Republican party with an eye toward effectiveness in the general assembly and electability Bailey responded, “The Illinois Republican Party needs leadership. I am bringing that. The State of Illinois needs leadership. I am bringing that. And we bring that by focusing on the things that unite us.”
Bailey continued, “And guess what. The things that unite us, JB Pritzker isn’t talking about. He is not talking about the fact that Chicago is a OK corral every night with shootings and homicides. He is not talking about the fact that businesses and families are fleeing our state, every day. He is not talking about the fact that our education is being decimated and our children’s futures are being lost.”
“I have discovered over the last two years that’s what the people of Illinois want fixed. That’s there focus. So we bring that together. That’s what we work on. And that’s how we unite the entire state,” said Bailey.
During Pritzker’s press conference he was asked about his thoughts on Bailey’s Chicago comments and Pritzker responded, “Darren Bailey continues to call out Chicago by names. He has criticized Chicago in so many ways. He continues to do so. He’s not bringing the state together.”
Pritzker continued, I have been doing it for the last four years, bringing people together making sure we are investing across the state. Darren Bailey won’t do that.”
In a follow up Pritzker was asked if Bailey was wrong to call out the problems in Chicago and said, “Look, remember you have got several jobs as governor. One thing is you have to identify problems, then you have got to go solve them. You’ve got to actually propose solutions. I have been doing that for four years with a pressing challenge.”
“That’s not something that Darren Bailey does,” Pritzker said, “He just complains about it. He’s calling those cities names. He wants to separate the state. That’s not what the governor should be doing. When you are solving problems for the people of Illinois you shouldn’t be dividing people. You should be addressing problems where they are on the ground. He doesn’t do that.”
Both candidates also spoke about pensions.
During his on stage Q & A Bailey said, “The pension system, I sat for four years trying to address the pension system in different committees only to be interrupted by the chair to be told that ‘Well we have Tier Two so it’s OK, everything’s fine. By the way it’s protected by the constitution.'”
Bailey continued, “About a month ago I was talking to an 85 year old retired state trooper and I asked him, are you satisfied with your pension knowing that it’s going to be coming for you each and every day? His answer was an absolute no. ‘I am scared to death.’ Friends we can deal with this but we’ve got to put it front and center and start working on it.”
During his on stage Q & A Pritzker also discussed pensions saying, “We have a net pension liability in this state of about $130 billion. Now that’s down from where it was a couple of years ago. And because of the Tier Two Pension System we are starting to see more Tier Two lower costs pensions take over and the higher cost Tier One pensions are diminishing.
Pritzker continued, “That’s good for taxpayers. But ultimately we have got to do more to pay down that debt. So I did that this last year.”
“To be clear, what did I do?” Pritzker went on, “In this year, this last year, when we had a surplus, we put $500 million more dollars into the pension system than we were required to by law. Why? Because we want to pay down those pensions as fast as we can whenever we have a budget surplus. So we are being responsible about paying down debt at the state. We have a long way to go. But we are making progress.”
“Again you got to work at it every year, year in and year out. For any of you that have long term debt whether it is on your home or on your business, you know this takes constant attention and you want to get it down to zero as fast as you can. We are working at that,” Pritzker said.
