Local lawmakers back budget plan, tout local gains
Suburban federal lawmakers of both parties unanimously backed the budget plan approved by Congress Wednesday, praising what they called an imperfect compromise.
“This deal certainly doesn't get everything we would want out of a spending agreement, but it marks real progress in the fight to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington,” U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, a Wheaton Republican, said. “As any football fan knows, you don't just score on perfect 50-yard passes, you work your way to the end zone running the ball for three yards and a cloud of dust.”
Democrats echoed those sentiments.
"No one got everything they wanted, but both sides found common ground in order to provide certainty to our businesses and communities," U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, a Deerfield Democrat, said.
The proposal includes money to end the threat of closure of the Waukegan Regional Airport control tower and sends money to the budgets of Fermilab in Batavia and Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont.
“The work done at Argonne and Fermi National Labs not only supports our local economy, employing as many as 4,725 people in Illinois, but it is critical to our nation's long-term economic success,” U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a Naperville Democrat, said.
Schneider, a Deerfield Democrat, touted funding for Great Lakes restoration projects and efforts to keep Asian Carp out.
And U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, pointed to money tied to flood insurance.
“My neighbors suffered a great deal from the flooding that took place last spring and this legislation will prevent most flood insurance premiums from being raised this year,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, a Winfield Republican, said the plan, which now goes to the U.S. Senate, gets “Congress away from governing by crisis.”
Disagreements over President Barack Obama's new heath care law and the federal budget prompted the government shutdown last year.