Ten Thoughts on Governor Pritzker's Budget and State of the State Address
Governor JB Pritzker enters the House chamber Wednesday before his combined State of the State and budget address. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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OPINION
Governor JB Pritzker presented his eight state budget proposal to the General Assembly Wednesday. Here are ten thoughts on what the Governor had to say:
It was a little…boring. I had multiple text messages pinging throughout the speech using terms like “snoozer,” “boring,” “dry,” “uninspired,” and “this could have been an e-mail” coming from folks on all sides of the political spectrum. Considering the wild ride that has been state finances over the past decade or two, maybe a little boring is good.
The Trump blame game was in full effect. I keep this newsletter pretty state focused, but for those that don’t know, I was an original “Never Trump” Republican. But it appears that the Governor’s pitch that the Trump administration is going to cost taxpayers $8.4 billion in federal funds appears to be a little…exaggerated. There’s no doubt the Trump administration is targeting Illinois in a very detrimental way, but it’s not like $8 billion is going to disappear from state funds between now and June 2027.
It’s hard to claim poverty and still propose increasing spending by three-quarters of a billion dollars. Yes, the pension payment and the EBF increase (which is about $45 million less than it should be) go up each year, it would have sent a critical message to taxpayers to say “we’re going to actually tighten our belt and make a few real cuts.”
Affordability is the name of the game for 2026, but the proposal does almost nothing to actually make it cheaper to live in the state. I appreciate his comments about making it easier to build housing, but changing zoning rules in the city and suburbs (for the most part) doesn’t do anything to make life cheaper for someone living in Mt. Vernon or Kankakee or Galesburg.
Property taxes didn’t get mentioned once. I double checked the text of the speech. Yes, it is so friggin’ hard to fix the problem, but to completely ignore one of the most pressing issues facing homeowners and taxpayers in the state (in an election year, nonetheless) was a huge swing and miss.
Taxing social media companies is an interesting idea. Republicans are going to complain about raising taxes on business, but I can’t imagine that taxing Mark Zuckerberg or whoever owns TikTok now is going to cause some giant outrage among the public. But…
Part of this is political. Tell me nobody in Pritzker’s inner circle hasn’t already thought of the TV ad in a 2028 presidential primary where he can exclaim PRITZKER TAXED ELON MUSK! (Musk owns Twitter/X and gained plenty of disdain on the left for his DOGE cuts last year.) But…
Is it all smoke and mirrors? A Republican pointed out to me last night that Pritzker has $200 million budgeted from the new social media tax and it is supposed to be deposited in the “Common School Fund,” where school dollars like the lottery go. But the budget proposal only increases that fund by around $85 million. So where does the other $115 million go?
Pensions continue to drag down the GRF. Yes, it’s a lower percentage of state spending than it has been in previous years, but we’re still spending close to 20% of the budget on the $10.7 billion pension payment next year. And there are a lot of unions out there arguing to blow up Tier 2, which would increase current pressures (and blow up the Edgar ramp goal of 90% funded by 2045 or the new Pritzker goal of 100% funded by 2048).
It’s going to be a wild spring. Look, the Governor’s budget speech is and has always been a starting point in negotiations. (Unless you count some of the Blagojevich budgets that just got tossed right in the trash.) But Democrats are going to have to deal with a lot of internal strife between now and May 31 to figure out their path. Obviously, there’s a push for a millionaire surcharge or a graduated income tax. Even if one of those gets on the ballot in November and is approved by taxpayers, we’re not seeing that money until sometime in 2028. There is a growing number of uber-progressive lawmakers in Springfield right now who aren’t going to put up with anything that even hints at austerity between now and then. It will be a tough job for Speaker Welch, and President Harmon to keep the caucuses in line (especially in an election year) without dealing with some sort of public mutiny from the left.
