Governor Presents Budget Address

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker Wednesday presented his fiscal year budget address.

Pritzker said the measure spends $1.8 billion less than the previous year, reflects $400 million in cuts to appropriations, a hiring freeze, flat operational spending, full required pension payments, and the closure of what he termed "unaffordable corporate loopholes". He said the budget proposal "reduces spending to meet projected revenues". 

Republican legislators have been critical of closing the loopholes, terming the moves "tax hikes".

The governor asked the General Assembly to pass a standalone bill this year to immediately direct $60 million in funding to the Illinois Department of Employment Security to help meet demand. He also asked to set aside a portion of new federal dollars for grants to small businesses. 

Pritzker proposed a $28 million increase in MAP grants for college students, allocates at least $50 million in additional state matching grants for wireless internet expansion.

(BAILEY)

Local State Senator Darren Bailey of Louisville criticized Pritzker's proposal. Here's his statement on the proposal:

“Last year at this time, the Governor put forward an unbalanced budget that relied on tax hikes that hadn’t passed, financial help that might not be coming, and more borrowing. This year he is pushing the same broken ideas. Instead of making hard decisions to keep our state spending within its means, the same kind of decisions that families across Illinois struggle to make every day, Pritzker is again relying on job-killing tax hikes that haven’t passed and other budget tricks. We need a budget that makes responsible cuts and prioritizes spending where it is needed most, a budget that helps our businesses stay open and keep people working. We need real leadership from our Governor, not the same failed ideas that are killing our state.”

(WILHOUR)

The Governor’s budget proposal fails working families in Illinois while protecting the political class and creates false choices, according to according to State Representative Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City).

“The Governor likes to talk about hard choices, but the only hard choices this budget makes are raising taxes on job creators and eliminating education opportunity scholarships for working families at a time when the public education system is failing,” Wilhour said. “These terrible choices, like nearly every policy that comes out of our special interest dominated state government, ignore the life-changing economic pain of real working families.” 

The Governor’s $42 billion budget relies on nearly $1 billion in tax increases on small businesses; fund sweeps and other gimmicks. It also eliminates the hard fought for tax credits for donations to scholarship granting organizations to help low-income families afford private and parochial school tuition. If the budget were based on current law, the budget would be out of balance by $1.653 billion. That deficit would be in addition to the state’s $5 billion unpaid bill backlog, $4.3 billion in short-term debt and $141 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

“The Governor can continue to talk about ‘cuts’ and cast shade on Republican for not identifying all of these for him, but all of this talk avoids the real issues,” Wilhour said. “Agency cuts are important, but they are just a drop in the bucket compared to our real spending problems. We need to completely transform how the state spends money. Real spending reform is the only solution.  Let's use this time to regroup and reprioritize our spending. That's where the real hard choices are going to be made. Unless these budgets are instituting structural reforms to spending like pension reform, zero-based budgeting, spending caps, government consolidation and elimination, and smart deregulation, you can rest assured they are not truly balanced.”

Wilhour said the Governor’s budget does what all democrat budgets before them have done-prioritize the interest of the special interests ahead of the interests of the taxpayers.

“If we are going to stop the exodus of people from Illinois, we have to change our policy priorities,” Wilhour said. “The reforms I have been pushing are the long-term solutions we need to turn our state around. We need a new direction – not the failed policies of the past.”

(NIEMERG)

State Representative Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich) reacted to what he termed "the Governor’s comments today that were supposed to be a budget address". The Governor’s comments, using the Illinois State Fairgrounds and working Illinois National Guard members as his backdrop, were short on specific real numbers and full of self-promotion and attacks on the Republican minority in the Legislature and the former governor.

“Governor Pritzker called Republicans extremist ‘carnival barkers’ in his fake state of the state /budget address. That was a political attack advertisement using your taxpayer dollars and resources at the Illinois State Fairgrounds,” commented Rep. Adam Niemerg. “He is the one running a circus with tight wire acts and jugglers throwing around tax dollars that aren’t his and trying to sell a cotton candy budget as healthy for Illinois families. It is not!”

Rep. Niemerg commented that the state was not in good shape before the coronavirus and his unilateral lockdowns and business closings compounded the situation a hundred times. Gov. Pritzker’s Department of Employment Security (IDES) failed our citizens who were forced into unemployment. Gov. Pritzker’s Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) failed our veterans with lax procedures that caused 34 deaths so far. Gov. Pritzker’s unilateral executive orders created a huge problem for small businesses that caused layoffs and flooded the unemployment system he did not prepare for properly.

“Fixing the state of Illinois finances begins with reforming the way we do business, which begins with the governor showing real leadership to make the tough decisions on only spending what actually exists in the state treasury to begin with,” added Niemerg.

(PLUMMER)

State Senator Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville) issued the following statement after the hybrid address:

“The Budget Address delivered by the Governor today perpetuates the same failed gimmicks of the past, supporting a budget that is $1.7 billion out-of-balance while ignoring the hardships the citizens and businesses of this state have faced for the past year.

“And the irony of it all is that the Governor accurately and correctly stated in his budget his constitutional requirement to present a budget based on expected expenditures. Yet, just pages later, he puts forth a plan that relies on $1.5 billion in non-existent revenue.

“While the Governor is relying on magic money and empty rhetoric, he’s taking aim at the hardworking men and women of this state by imposing new tax increases on Illinois’ business community under the guise of “loopholes.” These are the job creators and employees that are still working to recover from Pritzker’s imposed shutdowns that he unilaterally placed on our state for months. We should be focused on supporting our business community, not making it harder to do business in Illinois.

“We must address the root cause of Illinois’ fiscal issues, and that starts with passing a balanced budget that helps our businesses, protects our taxpayers and makes Illinois more competitive with our neighbors.”