One on One with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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SUSIE GHARIB: $9 billion: that's how much stimulus money the state of Illinois has been promised by the Obama administration. The prairie state needs that money. It has a record deficit, $11.5 billion and unemployment is over 9 percent, higher than the national average. As we continue our series, "Reviving the Economy: Government Responds," we focus tonight on Illinois. Joining me now, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. Governor, welcome to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT.
GOV. PAT QUINN, (D) ILLINOIS: It's an honor. Good to talk to you, Susie.
GHARIB: Governor, let me first begin by asking you, have you received any stimulus checks from Washington? And I ask you that because there were reports today that some states have yet to receive any money from Washington.
QUINN: We're just beginning to get the money. As far as commitments for the Federal transportation stimulus, our state is the number one in the nation. I think we have over $646 million in commitments on our highway and bridge projects, 242 projects. We were ready right at the opening bell. We want to be completely transparent. We're off to a good start and we're very grateful to President Obama for getting this going for Illinois and the whole country.
GHARIB: So you mentioned transportation projects. Where else are you going to spend this $9 billion?
QUINN: We have to deal with health and education. We want to make sure that we have adequate money to invest in elementary and secondary education. Jobs follow brain power. That's very important to maintain that in America today. We also have to deal with our health care needs. I believe in decent health care for everyone. Our Medicaid rolls have grown with the unemployment. We have to deal with that. I have been governor for 100 days. I took over from my disgraced predecessor and we're ready to take on any challenge in Illinois, especially the economic challenge, and one thing we're very interested in working with the president on is high- speed rail. We want to connect Chicago to St. Louis and other Midwestern cities like Milwaukee and Minneapolis and Detroit and Cleveland and we can do this within a short period of time and we're going to invest very much into high-speed rail.
GHARIB: From the money that you are going to be investing, is this going to create jobs or are you just saving jobs, saving people from getting laid-off?
QUINN: Well, I don't want to lay off teachers. I don't think anybody wants that. We are out for preserving jobs, but we have a robust public works program in Illinois. I think it's desperately needed. Our private economy is sort of sputtering. Consumers are hesitant. This is a time for government to prime the pump and invest in public works that will help us create jobs today and lay down a solid economic future for our state and the whole country. We believe in high-speed Internet. Everybody in, nobody left out. We have a very strong agricultural economy in Illinois. We want to make sure our rural areas are connected with high- speed Internet and broadband deployment.
GHARIB: How is the economy of Illinois doing? I mentioned some of the numbers at the beginning of this interview, but are you seeing any signs of improvement in the economy?
QUINN: I am. I think this will be a good year for housing. We have -- obviously, some setbacks in the past year or so. We have to get our housing back on track. We're going to be pumping in some of our public works spending into affordable housing, multifamily housing. We want to make sure our carpenters are working, our pipefitters are working. We have a lot of projects on water, conservation and sewer and clean water issues. This could be the issue of the 21st century -- clean water -- and we want to make sure that Illinois, with Lake Michigan, the Mississippi River, the Illinois River that connects both of them that we're really taking care of our water. A long time ago Mark Twain said whiskey's for drinking and water is worth fighting for.
GHARIB: What about the auto industry?
QUINN: We're concerned. Chrysler Belvedere right now is on shutdown. We want to get Chrysler back on its feet. We hope they can put something together with Fiat and have very good projects. We have Mitsubishi located in Bloomington, Illinois. I would like to see Mitsubishi bring an electric car product line to Illinois. We would like to try that out. We also have Ford on the south side of Chicago. We have a great auto supplier network all across Illinois. We don't want to lose that. It's very important to our economy and we want to work with our manufacturers to do the right thing.
GHARIB: Governor, you mentioned it's 100 days now that you are in office in the aftermath of that scandal surrounding the former governor of Illinois. To what extent is politics, though, hindering what you can accomplish for the economy of Illinois?
QUINN: Well, I think the people of Illinois breathed a great sigh of relief that my predecessor has left the building and was impeached and recalled and removed from office. We have a positive attitude. We have people working together for the first time in a long time. We've passed already a jump-start capital bill of $3.4 billion. We're going to try and do a capital bill, a jobs recovery bill of $30 billion.
GHARIB: Are you saying politics is not going to get in the way of you doing good things economically?
QUINN: I don't think so. I want to try to get everybody singing out of the same hymn book. That's my job. We have a Herculean challenge, I understand that, but we're going to pass tough ethics laws. We're going to balance our budget. We're going to invest in jobs and economic recovery and make the will of the people the law of the land.
GHARIB: We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much, sir, for coming on our program.
QUINN: Thank you.
GHARIB: My guest tonight, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.
