East Central Reporter

State Representative Blaine Wilhour, a Republican from Beecher City, expressed strong criticism of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker following the governor's State of the State and Budget address. Wilhour's remarks were pointed and covered several areas where he believes Pritzker has failed.

Wilhour stated, "Well, you know you are losing when you have to resort to calling your political opponents Nazis. That’s completely disgusting and unfortunately par for the course for JB Pritzker. He is proving more and more every day that he’s just a disgusting loser." He continued by saying that Pritzker is struggling with the fact that he will not become president, adding, "But the American people reject the stupid 'B.S.' that he puts out."

The representative criticized Pritzker's policies regarding working families: "JB likes to pay lip service to working families, but I can tell you there has not been a governor in the nation that’s been worse for working families than JB Pritzker!" According to Wilhour, measures such as doubling utility bills through what he termed a "green new scam" and increasing gas taxes are particularly harmful to low- and middle-income families.

He also accused Governor Pritzker of financial mismanagement: "He’s wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money and now leaves us with over a $3 billion hole in the budget that's going to lead us to even higher taxes." This fiscal gap could force local governments to raise property taxes.

Wilhour called for significant changes in state policy: “If we are going to get things going in this state, we’ve got to change the way we are doing business. We need massive deregulation, especially with energy." He advocated for reforms including lowering business costs and offering incentives like full expensing on investments related to job creation in Illinois.

Additionally, Wilhour emphasized addressing property taxes which he claims stifle industrial growth: “We are going to have to deal with property taxes. It’s absolutely killing our industrial potential."

Concluding his statement, Wilhour suggested these changes would improve Illinois' standing nationally: “If we started doing some of these things we would get out of the bottom of all of these lists and there would be more opportunity in Illinois.”