Bruce Rauner Quotes
Those who value a strong safety net for our neediest citizens see that every extra dollar spent on these unions is a dollar that cannot go to help the sick, the elderly, and the vulnerable.
Rauner, Bruce. "Freeing Illinois Public Workers From Union Coercion." The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 9 Feb. 2015.
When budget cutting was deemed necessary, the Governor was a strong voice for not cutting services to the most needy.
He later claimed that he misspoke. He was particularly damaged by this statement as he was personally very wealthy, was supported by most large corporations, and had been accused of only worrying about the rich and business.
What makes this a noteworthy political quotation is that when he made the statement, his party had lurched to the radical right and almost no one else in the Republican party would publicly say that the Federal Government had any legitimate role that involved social services, food distribution, welfare or health care. Also the Republican Presidential candidate the day before had been discovered writing off the poorest 43 percent of the country. Heller however, was up for reelection in a state what was hit much harder than most in the Great Recession and without Federal Assistance many state residents would be in terrible circumstances and Heller would not fare well in the election if he took the then required Republican ideology. Also, Heller came from a blue collar family and had a much different outlook than most Republicans of that particular time.
At the time there were tax breaks for large yachts but not for small boats that a middle class person might own. It was another example of the tax laws at the time where the poor paid only Social Security taxes, and the rich lobbied for an got very large tax breaks and subsidies and hence the burden was carried by an increasingly stressed middle class .and by cuts in services to the needy. The companies that made the yachts also supported the tax breaks as did the unions and workers in the industry. . See {624984}. .
Bruce Vincent Rauner is an American businessman, philanthropist and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. Prior to his election, he was the chairman of R8 Capital Partners and chairman of the private equity firm GTCR, based in Chicago. The Republican nominee in the 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election, he defeated Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn by 50.3% to 46.4%. In 2018, after narrowly surviving a challenge in the Republican primary from State Representative Jeanne Ives, Rauner lost the general election to Democratic challenger J. B. Pritzker in a landslide.
