More on Kirk Dillard’s Foray into Crystal Lake

Yesterday in an article entitled

Kirk Dillard Woos McHenry County Women

McHenry County Blog started a three-part series on what happened when the GOP candidate came to Crystal Lake.

Stephanie Dillard talks with Irene Napier and Joyce Story after the breakfast at 1776.

Besides covering pensions and a new tax credit for contributions to charitable organizations, Dillard also spoke favorably about subsidizing private schools, noting that their being open saved taxpayers lots of money.

He said he wanted to increase it (the tax credit) to “make it meaningful.”

There were lots of claps in the roomful of women.

A business woman asked the candidate about reforming Workers Compensation.

“I’ve already begun talking to unions about this,” he said. Dillard advanced a voluntary arbitration plan which would “cut the trial lawyers out of the system,” encouraging “faster payment and more money.”

He stressed that it would not be mandatory, but would be accomplished through collective bargaining.

Advocating an “agreed bill” process he said,

“I’m going to lock these folks (business and union officials) in a room in the mansion (until they bring) Workers Comp costs in line with the nation.”

In a nod to the historically-minded, Dillard told of having spent ten years trying to get his father-in-law to donate the bedroom set in his house to the Executive Mansion.

I can’t remember the number of great-greats, but one of those great-grandmothers of Dillard’s wife Stephanie bore a child in the bed while her husband, Gov. Richard Oglesby, was in office during the mid-1900’s. Oglesby nominated Abraham Lincoln for president.

If her husband is elected governor, Mrs. Dillard promised,

“I won’t be giving birth in the mansion.”

Near the end of the formal part of the gathering, the state senator urged the women to go back to work to improve the economy and, incidentally, the health of the state’s finances.

“That’s the best way to grow the economy.”

He wants them to shop, too, I guess, because he added,

“We need the sales tax revenue.”


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