The Latest Breaking News from Don Harmon

If they seriously need the money, they need to give up their job representing their constituents because it would seem like they are only in it for the money.

Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

Illinois will have $1 billion in its rainy day fund, but a worse than expected economic downturn could still cause some fiscal pain, although not nearly as much as in the days when the state had no cushion at all.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Republican state lawmakers, outnumbered and looking to boost their relevance, had one goal for the election-year legislative session — to paint majority Democrats as soft-on-crime and anti-police.

In their 16-minute news conference, Pritzker and the Democratic leaders never mentioned the amount of overall spending called for in the budget plan, which had not yet been filed. Late Thursday, the governor’s office said they expected it to fall between $46 billion and $47 billion.

The tax relief in the plan announced by Illinois House Majority Leader Greg Harris falls squarely in the middle of the $1 billion in cuts Gov. J.B. Pritzker highlighted in his February budget proposal and the $1.8 billion that state Senate Democrats pitched last week.