Rock Island Today

Francisco Cruz “Keko” Martinez is encouraged this election season by what he sees as less concern about party politics coming from voters.

“More people seem tired of all the politics and are just desperate for change,” Martinez told Rock Island Today. “What that translates to mean is more people being less concerned about voting along party lines. They just want this state to get its affairs together and for Illinois to be Illinois again.”

Martinez bemoans the findings in a new Illinois Policy Institute report that conclude, at a time when some lawmakers are pushing various tax increase proposals, taxpayers are already on the hook for as much as $100 million in wasteful government spending.

Illinois State House Speaker Mike Madigan

Hidden in the recently enacted, record-setting state spending plan, the debt includes such line items as $13.1 million for an arts council chaired by the wife of Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and pork projects, including $10 million to rehabilitate Chicago’s privately owned Uptown Theatre.

“People are asking themselves why are we wasting money to raise taxes and have even more to waste,” said Martinez, running for Rock Island County Sheriff against Democratic incumbent Gerry Bustos. “Common sense would be to take care of the waste so that you don’t have to raise taxes.”

All the unnecessary spending comes at a time when state taxpayers are already handcuffed by the second highest property tax rates in the country and pay one of the highest combined tax burdens in the country.

The taxation has taken its toll.

Illinois has seen its population dip in each of the last four years. A recent Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois Springfield and NPR Illinois survey found more than half of Illinois residents polled admit they have dreamed of calling some other place home, with skyrocketing taxes being their primary motivator.

“Illinois’ biggest problem is we keep electing the same clowns to Springfield,” Martinez added. “We don’t need the people that love and honor this state to be the ones running away. What’s needed is for us to get rid of all these bad politicians and vote in more truly fiscally conservative types.”

Statistics also show that state and local government account for an additional $97 million in frivolous spending. That figure excludes school districts, which make up one of the largest single items in the state budget.

“We’ve got to get rid of Madigan once and for all,” Martinez said. “His machine politics have done more to harm this state than can ever be said. As soon as he’s dethroned, we can all exhale. I just want my state to be free of the ball and chain of over taxation.”