my name is was with her not on the editor-in-chief at the day here and i'll be conducting the interview today so let's just jump right in so your website says that you will stand against an old trumps attacks on dreamers and fight for permanent legislative solution for DACA recipients to stay in this country and pursue the american dream what can you do or bring about to help protect the dreamers to fight against the very real threat that the DACA program will be removed well the first thing that i can do as governor is to make sure that we're lobbying our federal officials like senator dik durbin senator tami ducworth the uh... eighteen congress people that represent us from the state of lnoy to stand up in washington against donald trump and for our dreamers the second thing is that we've got to make sure we're protecting dreamers here in the state of lnoy we can do that by first enforcing the trust act uh... which protects undocumented immigrants in the state from the state turning over their information to the federal government and making sure that our officials here in the state are not uh... leading the federal government to the doors of our immigrants uh...
second we need to make sure that we're standing up for immigrant families both documented and undocumented who are under threat by donald trump we of course have the opportunity to expand coverage of the trust act to other areas which haven't been included in the trust act up to now uh... and that i have said that i would work hard for for example we need to make sure that we pass the provision of the trust act that would protect those who might be subject to a federal registry you may have heard of the muslim registry that donald trump wanted to implement that's something that i find abhorrent and i think most people in the state of lnoy do too and there was originally a provision of the trust act in lnoy that would have protected people in lnoy from those registries that we would have refused to participate however that didn't get passed so i'm going to work hard to get it passed i want to assure you that if even if we don't get it passed as governor of the state the president implements a muslim registry i will encourage every resident of the state of lnoy no matter what their religion and i'll be first in line to go register as a muslim and then my next question is we all know that the financial stability of the state is not very good at the moment how exactly do you plan on addressing the after-effects of the budget crisis well as you know we lived for seven hundred thirty six days of bridge rounder without a budget because bruce rounder was unwilling to sit down and hammer one out with his counterparts in the legislature that's something that if we get rid of bruce rounder that i'll change because i believe that it's the job of the governor to get a budget even if you have to sit down with people you don't like or don't agree with you're there to serve the people of lnoy and they're not served well when you don't have a budget look at what happened many of the human services that people rely upon in neighborhoods all across chicago and all across cook county and the state of lnoy were cut were close down in fact many of the social service agencies stopped functioning and people working there were let go so if you needed substance abuse treatment or you need mental health treatment or you needed a homeless shelter in many cases you couldn't find it anymore because of the failure of bruce rounder to pass a budget so first we have to be responsible about getting a budget passed second we have to actually have a balanced budget it's a requirement of the constitution of the state of lnoy that the governor introduce a balanced budget and not once in bruce rounders four years or four times producing a budget as he actually introduced the constitutionally required balance budget we need to do that but we also need to make sure that we're recognizing the elements of what it is to have a balanced budget we need to not only look at expenditures and revenues but also at growth because we haven't had any job growth in the state of lnoy economic growth has been in e-mick and when you've got job growth and economic growth you can raise revenue in the state uh... without having to raise taxes so that'll be an important element of my plan for balancing the budget and then of course we need a progressive income tax a progressive income tax will allow us to protect the middle class and those driving to get there in fact a lower their overall tax burden by lowering property taxes and raising the state's share of education funding which is very important because we need to make sure that every child in the state of lnoy no matter the color of their skin or their parents income level gets a quality education a progressive income tax will allow us to get there and protect those who've been most burdened by taxes the middle class and those driving together uh... and the next question is one of your ways to combat gun violence is by taking a public health approach in treating it as a public health epidemic you explain a little bit exactly what that means and how you plan to implement that sure so first of all it's a different approach than the traditional one in that the idea is just like a disease you want to interrupt the disease you want to treat the disease and essentially want to cure a community and uh...
and so that requires us to treated not as simply a law enforcement issue but uh... making sure that we're interrupting it on the streets of their programs like ceasefire which is a program that sends people into the streets to work with those mostly young men uh... who are you know who have weapons uh... and who might otherwise be committing a crime to work with them to try to help them avoid getting involved in gangs avoid getting involved in uh...
violent crime uh... that's been very very effective ceasefire and something that i think the state needs to uh... make sure that we fund you know uh... gun violence in many ways is an epidemic uh...
and in order to treat that epidemic we have to you know focus on prevention and intervention wherever we can by investing in programs like ceasefire we got to restore funding for community organizations and human services the best way to avoid gun violence on the streets of not just a cargo but all across the state because people forget that there's a gun violence problem in rockford and in the oria and carbon-dale uh... the best way to to to to deal with that is to make sure that we're putting back the human services those last vestiges of connection that many people have to society if we make sure to put them back then people will avoid gun violence but if we don't people lose hope and frankly it's much easier for them to fall prey to the you know addiction of gun violence into the uh... you know to the fact that we have too many illegal guns on the streets uh... in the next question is as a college student how would you make a college education more affordable for students well my goodness under Bruce rounder almost seventy two thousand fewer students go to school in the state of illinois and that's because he was unwilling to fund the scholarship grants that kids rely upon he was unwilling to fund programs that our students are looking to attend at our universities and now of course you would like to consolidate universities and close some of them down i think that's a precisely the wrong way to go i personally i believe that you can't afford a college education should get a free college education and we need to make sure that we're providing access to a good quality education so that kids don't end up strapped with debt for the rest of their lives also want to help people refinance their college loans which i think we can do using state resources and then finally i think it's very important for us to focus on the faculty and maintaining the programs that are so important for our universities which are some of the best universities in the nation and then on you can touch time grants and all that in your answer but we have a good number of students here at St.
Xavier that depend on the math grant so like how would you work to improve or defend that well remember what happened when Bruce Rauner was unwilling to reach a budget compromise many students were afraid that they wouldn't receive their math grants and had to make decisions about whether to take the chance that they will get their map grant or instead to choose to simply leave the state of Illinois so we need to make sure that we're providing not just the map grant funding but some visibility into the four years of college education and the availability of map grants throughout now like i said though i think that we should make college free for those who can't afford to go to college and we've got to make sure that we're investing in our universities because honestly the most important resource of the state of Illinois is our people and our educated dedicated workforce that's why people want to invest in Illinois when they do and it's why people create jobs here because we've got the best educated most dedicated workforce in the nation and look at why would Amazon look to Illinois to move here because Chicago is the second largest college town in America and that's an important attractor as is the high level of education of many of our residents okay and then my final question for you is you were endorsed by the Chicago Sun times so how does that feel well i am so thrilled to have the endorsement of the Chicago Sun times I think one of the things that they paid close attention to is that i'm the only candidate in this race that's thinking about the future and job creation and the economy of the state of Illinois investing not just in the job creation capability of our state but also in making sure that our labor unions are strong here so that we raise wages in the state that in the course of raising wages by raising the minimum wage we also can create jobs because as I say there's a false choice that many people make in other states and frankly our governor is making that somehow you if you have higher wages you can't create jobs in my view in fact those things go together that if you've got an educated dedicated workforce people want to pay your workforce more and they want to come to your state they want to create jobs and it isn't all about the tax rate necessarily it isn't all about the workplace lowering the cost of workplace safety which is what Richard Ratter wants to do but instead it's really all about the level of talent that the state has available to new businesses and to businesses that are looking to move so i know the sun times recognize many of those things about my background the fact that i found it eighteen seventy one that i've helped to create thousands and thousands of jobs in Illinois and i'm proud of my record and i was thrilled to see the sun times recognize that