Pat Quinn on Technology

Largest infrastructure construction program in IL history

We had one former Governor in jail and another on the way to jail. Our economy had plunged into the worst recession since the Great Depression, brought to its knees by greedy and corrupt financiers. And our financial house was on fire, set ablaze by decades of mismanagement and an utter lack of willingness to make the tough calls.

But over the past five years, we've rebuilt one hard step at a time. And we've been getting the job done. Illinois is making a comeback.

When I took the oath of office, state government hadn't properly invested in our infrastructure in 10 years. Within 10 weeks, we passed the largest construction program in Illinois history. So far, we've built and repaired 7,595 miles of road, 1,311 bridges and 978 schools.

Create next-generation jobs with "1871" digital hub

In the last 3 years, manufacturing has been one of our state's leading growth sectors, creating nearly 40,000 new jobs. We're at the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing, and we need to stay there.

That's why we're partnering with the University of Illinois and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create an advanced manufacturing hub where companies--big and small--come to learn and use the world's most sophisticated tools and software. The Illinois Manufacturing Lab will make our manufacturers more competitive.

Now, in our Illinois, we leave no worker behind. As we create next-generation jobs, we must ensure that our workers are equipped for them. We're closing this "skills gap."

Pay backlog of $280M for mass transit

Ban texting while driving

Now that took a lot of work. It took State policemen on the highways, the Department of Transportation. We passed a law this year, a very important law that will ban texting while driving.