56th District rivals share views on fixing budget
Both candidates for the 56th District state House seat have at least one thing in common - they can't be blamed for the existing $13 billion deficit in the Illinois budget.
But come Nov. 2, voters will decide whether Republican Ryan Higgins, 28, or Democrat Michelle Mussman, 37, is the newcomer best able to be part of the solution.
The two Schaumburg residents share a desire to avoid new taxes, build jobs and make Illinois a more attractive environment for businesses to locate and remain.
But they take significantly different approaches to reducing spending in the budget.
Mussman says the time has come for a fresh line-by-line look at the budget by a new wave of legislators who don't make partisanship and political self-interest the same priority their predecessors have.
She believes the solution to finding and disposing of waste in the budget must be a bipartisan effort, involving Democrats willing to stand up to House Speaker Michael Madigan. She said she is one such Democrat.
Neither does she agree with the belief of Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn that a tax increase must play some role in ending the state's budget crisis.
"Illinois isn't demonstrating it knows how to handle the money it's already receiving," Mussman said.
She believes new legislators need to concentrate on maximizing every dollar the state has, rebid all its current contracts and get used to personally earning less money than they do now.
The pay legislators currently receive has isolated them from the problems and hard choices their constituents are facing, and voting for a pay reduction is something Mussman said she would do.
Cutting legislator pay and focusing on public pension reform are ideas favored by both Mussman and Higgins.
Higgins' professional background as a health care attorney has also opened his eyes to other obvious areas of the budget that can be trimmed, he said.
There is currently $1 billion worth of Medicaid fraud occurring every year, he asserts, where the state can find some savings.
It's been demonstrated that every dollar spent on enforcement of anti-fraud regulations yields $13 worth of savings, he added.
Better policing of the people receiving Medicaid benefits - to be sure they meet both state residency and income criteria - could also lower costs, Higgins said.
He added that it's been discovered that 20 percent of the children participating in the state's All Kids program who were believed to be undocumented are in fact legal Illinois residents and thus eligible for federal matching dollars to reduce the state's burden.
"I consider these things to be low-hanging fruit," Higgins said of these approaches to fixing the state budget.
Identifying the waste in big-ticket items like health care and pension is just a start to fixing the $13 billion deficit. As half of the deficit stems from such operational costs, correcting them is the first step in keeping the deficit from growing and should be addressed as quickly as possible, he said.
Not only should legislators' pay be cut by 10 percent, but there should be regulations preventing excessive staff raises such as the 20 percent raises that were attempted for Quinn's gubernatorial staff earlier this year, Higgins said.
He added that a new bipartisan attitude is needed in Springfield and that independent-minded legislators of both parties can work together on these solutions. Higgins said candidates from across the state have already been calling him to discuss his ideas on Medicaid reforms.
The 56th District includes Schaumburg and parts of Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Palatine, Rolling Meadows, Hanover Park, Roselle and Bloomingdale.