Link misses mark on financial fix

The state was in financial shambles long before the recent downturn in the economy, largely because elected officials like Sen. Terry Link allowed former Gov. Blagojevich to deficit spend in a way never seen before.

Terry Link's latest plan to help plug the hole in the budget is to allow for online horse betting in Illinois. When will this guy get it? He's helped chase jobs out of Lake County and Illinois, meaning that less people have money to spend ... and what money people do have to spend is needed on things like education, health care, proper nutrition, and to pay for the tickets that will be issued to speeders caught on Mr. Link's cameras.

Instead of creating ways to encourage investment in jobs where people can support themselves, all he and the narrow visioned leaders in Springfield can do is to come up with ways to transfer money from citizens to government (higher taxes, increased fees, new gimmicks tied to gambling, speeding cameras, etc.).

This is fundamentally wrong in a free market society. Voters have to realize that the only reliable way out of this economic downturn is to: encourage private sector job creation, encourage investment/ingenuity/hard work by letting people keep more of the money that they earn, not allow the government to give money away that it doesn't have, and for government to get SMALLER and REDUCE spending, not the opposite, which seem to be a foreign thought to these government leaders who have little or no experience outside of the public gravy train.

Keith Gray

Mettawa