Breen's voice only heard by Governor

The Lombardian publishes a weekly column by District 48 State Rep Peter Breen titled 'Your voice in Springfiled.' After two years of reading his columns I pose the question, Whose voice does he represent? On Day One of his legislative career in January, 2015, Breen signed on to Governor Rauner's turnaround agenda which told the legislature there would be no state budget till it passed his wish list of pro business items designed to please his affluent base. That was an unprecedented and unconscionable departure from every governor, Democrat or Republican, in Illinois history. The budget process is and must be about determining state needs: education, infrastructure, criminal justice resources, assistance for the poor, working moms, the disabled, the mentally challenged; then determining how to fund those critical needs. Rauner, with Breen and GOP caucus support, essentially put entire state governance on hold trying to get an agenda through gubernatorial extortion; something the legislature rightly resisted. As a result, every measure of state governance as suffered in comparison to Rauner and Breen's predecessor. 

Breen's record certainly isn't the voice of Illinois' college students, losing out in schools cutting programs and services due no state budget. It doesn't include state vendors waiting months for payments from a state that stiffs them.  People in need certainly don't consider Breen their voice since fully a half of state welfare agencies are cutting services and laying off valued workers, to their great distress. It is not the voice of potential entrepreneurs unwilling to invest in a state not funding essential services. 

Breen ends his latest piece with the meaningless bromide that Illinois can be fixed if only we work together. After 27 months it hasn't dawned on him that holding the legislature hostage for a non budgetary wish list as the price of a budget is the furthest thing from working together one can imagine. Breen's voice speaks loudly and often, but the only one it represents is the Governor.