By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has made a big deal about “balancing the budget” during his three years in office, but like we’ve said all along, the budget isn’t balanced and hasn’t been for years. Any claims of balance are simply untrue.
For proof, look at the recent Auditor General’s review of Illinois’ five state-run pension funds. The report shows that Illinois’ statutory pension payments over the last few years have each been $4 billion short of what the state’s pension actuaries say should have been put in.
How, you might ask, can budgets be “balanced” if the contributions to pension funds have been shorted by $4 billion every year since 2018? Because the legislature says it’s balanced, that’s how. Lawmakers arbitrarily get to define the state’s required statutory payment to pensions and as long as it makes that payment, they say the budget is balanced – regardless of what the actuaries say the pension payments should be.
An so it went in 2021. The General Assembly paid what statute said was needed – $9.87 billion. Never mind the actuaries called for $13.99 billion.
What happens to that $4 billion gap? Everything else equal, it becomes new debt taxpayers are on the hook for.
Illinois lawmakers played the same game in 2020, 2019 and 2018, when state contributions were all about $4 billion short. And always, politicians claimed they had balanced the budget.
To be clear, this is not a new problem. Wirepoints has covered Illinois’ long failure to properly pay for pensions, from the beginning of the Edgar Ramp in 1996 to today. Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001.
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The nearly $200 billion in federal Covid bailout money for Illinois has done a lot to hide the state’s pension and budget problems over the last two years, as did the the once-in-a-generation 2021 stock market rally fueled by the trillions injected into the economy.
But Illinois’ nation-worst pension crisis hasn’t gone anywhere. That will become obvious as the benefits of the Covid aid wear off and the reality of tanking stock markets, spiking interest rates and an increasingly probable recession rear their ugly heads. Expect Illinois’ state budgets to become difficult again.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Wirepoints’ Pension Solutions
- Gov. Edgar’s starring role in IL’s pension crisis: It’s bigger than just the “Edgar Ramp”
- Credit the near $200 billion federal bailout, not Pritzker’s actions, for Illinois’ “improved” 2023 budget
- Illinois Pensions – Overpromised & Overgenerous
- Pension obligation bonds prioritize public sector workers, stiff taxpayers
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Pritzker is lying? That cannot be so! He is as clean as the driven slush on a cold winter Chicago day!
JB has a better chance of balancing himself on the head of a pin than he does of balancing the Illinois budget.
Has anyone crunched the numbers without any federal money? What would the shortfall be without raising any taxes?
Why would we run numbers without raising taxes? As noted, the state needs to put more money each year into pensions in order to have a true balanced budget. The state needs more money and that means either cuts elsewhere or increased revenue. Since neither party seems to want to cut spending then that means taxes will need to increase. It’s pretty simple.
Option 3: The State pushes the expenses to the municipalities. The State won’t cut expenses or raise taxes, but the municipalities will.
Same difference – only taxpayers would blame local authorities instead of Springfield.
Almost looking forward to the coming recession when the Illinois can no longer get the math to work. There will be no bailouts this time from a Republican congress. Although I’ll also be hurting in my new state, it will be more like a paper cut instead of the Illinois stab wound. Remember, you could have watched the Illinois carnage from afar like me, but you claimed to be “stuck”.
Unfortunately, uninformed and welfare voters, as well as many who are simply apathetic across the economic spectrum, don’t care about a balanced budget. Rather, “Where’s mine?” “How many ‘likes’ do I have?” Or from the basement, “Mom, buy more cereal!” Pathetic. I predict low voter turnout today.
JB runs a smoke and mirrors game. Has not addressed one fundamental issue on the fiscal / budget front. Surprised the younger people / families have not figured this out, as the turd is coming their way.