Why lawmakers don't discuss turnaround

I attended state Senator Mike Connelly's and Representative Jeanne Ives' joint town hall in the Wheaton community center March 4. This is the second town hall of my state representatives which I have attended since the election of Bruce Rauner as governor.

I wished to hear details of the governor's turnaround agenda, but instead from these two representatives of mine I was again treated to the negative story of how broken is the state. We hear of unfunded pension obligations. Connelly and Ives bash the dismal state of Illinois employment and economic growth, suggesting that if through the Great Recession if we only had normal growth in Illinois the state would be flush with cash.

We hear of people leaving the state and increased cost for Medicaid. There is fraud everywhere one looks and hate for public employee unions and the city of Chicago. Ives defends DuPage County from state intrusion like it was a chartered jurisdiction of the state of "anywhere, but Illinois," instead of a municipality of Illinois. No, Jeanne, municipalities in any state are not sovereign entities.

Surrounding states which have demolished unions, have reduced workers' wages, ripped apart their social safety net and reduced funding for their schools like Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin are praised, but when a member of the audience suggests we follow the example of a progressive and successful state like Minnesota, Connelly tells us that Minnesota is not comparable to Illinois. What a cop-out, Senator Connelly.

Rauner's turnaround agenda is to lower the cost of manufacturing at the expense of a living wage for Illinois workers. That is why CEO's of Rauner's class are moving jobs out of America, including the states of Indiana and Wisconsin. But Connelly and Ives don't want their constituents to understand the economic wreckage which lowering wages will cost us, so they don't speak about Rauner's turnaround agenda in any detail.

Tom Teune

Wheaton