Illinois will only get economically healthy if we stop focusing on growing minimum wages and start focusing on growing everyone's wages.

Being a successful CEO, where I've driven a bottom line, assembled teams, driven results, that's a critical benefit to running the state government.

I think we've got to be competitive here in Illinois. It's critical we're competitive. We're hurting our economy by having the minimum wage above the national. We've got to move back to the national.

The critical thing is that we have to reduce the tax burden.

Good intentions often get muddled with very complex execution. The last time the government tried to make taxes easier, it created a 1040 EZ form with a 52-page help booklet.

Despite the enormous role that local government plays in our daily lives, the constitution makes not one mention of it.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Anyone who thinks you can pay $3,100 to the federal government and thinks you can get that money back completely in services - like I said - he may go to M-I-T but he is an N-U-T.