I ran on a platform of helping to resolve the fiscal crisis in Springfield.

Frankly, the problem is much worse than I thought before I took office in January. The state has $9 billion of unpaid bills, more than $200 billion of debt, and the state can’t issue debt on a cost-efficient basis.

Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman, was right when he said that Illinois is insolvent. Our terrible fiscal situation is discouraging job creators from coming to Illinois. We now have a very high unemployment rate of 9 percent in Illinois. It will be hard to get that unemployment rate down unless we’re courageous and make hard decisions.