Dupage Policy Journal

Jay Kinzler argues no stone should go unturned in what should be the state of Illinois’ never-ending quest to cut government spending.

“We have to find significant ways to do that and everything needs to be looked at as an option,” Kinzler told the DuPage Policy Journal. “Illinois is a great state with a lot of natural resources, but the only way to jump-start our economic engine and release the power of the state is for us to come from up under.”

Kinzler said he fails to see any logic in plans being pushed by some lawmakers that would raise taxes even higher and put the state into even further debt, especially given that a new Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) report finds that the state’s current spending is riddled with as much as $100 million in waste.

Among the itemizations are $13.1 million for an arts council chaired by the wife of Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and pork projects that include $10 million to rehabilitate Chicago’s privately owned Uptown Theatre.

“When I say everything needs to be looked at, I mean everything,” said Kinzler, who is running against incumbent state Rep. Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park) in the 46th District. “We have to (be) willing to make cuts whenever or wherever we can.”

As an example of some of the unnecessary bloat, Kinzler points to the more than 1,000 different school districts spread across the state.

“Pennsylvania has only about half that many units and more students,” he said. “What that means is Illinois is ultimately paying five, six, seven superintendents for the one employed in other states. And all these senior-level people are walking away with these lifetime pension plans.”

Kinzler said the more he goes door-to-door campaigning, the more he senses how much people are really struggling to pay the skyrocketing tax rates they’ve already been burdened with.

“People haven’t even figured out how to deal with the 32 percent tax hike and we’re already pushing for more,” he said. “It’s like I’ve always said, we don’t have a revenue problem - we have a spending problem.”

All the dysfunction is proving to come at a major cost for the state.

Illinois has experienced four straight years of population decline, and a recent Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois Springfield and NPR Illinois survey found more than half of all residents polled admitted that they dream of calling someplace else home, with taxes being their primary gripe.

IPI reports at the heart of state’s wasteful ways are structural problems that include lifetime health care guarantees for state workers and an unsustainable pension benefits system.

Over nearly the last two decades, spending on government workers pensions (663 percent increase) and employee health insurance (215 percent) has far outpaced all other spending, according to the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.

Kinzler frets something has to give, and soon.

“It starts with having competent leadership in Springfield,” he said. “Right now, we have too many in government that are beholden to Mike Madigan, and that has to change for the good of us all.”

The 46th House District includes all or parts of Addison, Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Glen Ellyn, Glendale Heights, Hanover Park, Lombard and Villa Park.