Springfield . . . State Senator Kyle McCarter said Gov. Pat Quinn’s hour and 20 minute State of the State speech Wednesday included only a few minutes devoted to Illinois’ massive budget crisis, which looms over every aspect of state government.

“I’m shocked the financial crisis we are in is not a bigger priority for this governor,” said McCarter (R-Lebanon).  “Instead the speech was devoted to speaking about windmills, high-speed rail and new investment in education.  Education is important and a priority but it’s not going to immediately produce new jobs, which should be the number one priority.”

The 51st District Senator also said the governor mentioned working with lawmakers to restructure the tax rate, which McCarter takes as code for raising taxes.

“That is the wrong approach.  He said we are taxing the poor people into further poverty, well the poor aren’t paying income taxes so he must be planning to target the working people of this state to pay more; to pay for an irresponsible government that cannot control its spending.”

McCarter said over the past six years, state government has created and or expanded one program and project after another.  “That’s the wrong plan,” said McCarter.  “I have been saying for nearly a year that we must cut spending across-the-board and when I said five percent last year, it may have to be 10 percent this year because of the level of this crisis.”

The Senator, who is just completing his first year in office, said a new approach is needed to get Illinois back on its financial feet.

“The only fair and honest way to increase revenues to the state is through job creation,” said McCarter.  “We must make Illinois attractive to the risk takers who will invest in the people of Illinois, to create new jobs, start businesses and create new products.  If we don’t change our business environment, the investments and the jobs will go to neighboring states.  We will come out of this recession but if we don’t make these changes we will be the last state to come out.”

A year ago, Governor Blagojevich was removed from office and Pat Quinn became Governor and despite the hope for a fresh start which existed at that time, the unaffordable programs and program expansions pushed through by Blagojevich and legislative Democrats remained in place.

Despite plenty of warning signs a year ago, Quinn and his legislative allies dug a deeper hole of state debt and unpaid bills.  Now, Illinois is faced with its largest budget deficit in history, the worst backlog of unpaid bills in history and the largest taxpayer debt in state history.